The Tapes (2011) Reviews

• Not very good

  frivolousfate2011-10-22

  Blah blah blah....Gemma wants to get on to big brother(uk)...her and her boyfriend and another friend set out to make a showreel for her audition. They get sidetracked and end up at some remote place where the two boys plan to secretly film a swingers party. The movie starts out descent. The characters are fairly cliché. I'd not want to see Gemma on BB. Nor Danny, maybe Nate, but idk probably not, they're all rather boring. I suppose the only reason I'd say it starts out descent is because I enjoy BB so much. I suppose they use that to an advantage. A lot of the movie is just them walking around exploring this place. Scaring each other. A whole lot of nothing. Randomly shots of the characters family members are thrown in, which adds nothing. As the movie progresses it tries to make a weak attempt at making it seem the characters are breaking down, and turning on one another and it felt very forced and just boring. As far as the whole shaky cam thing, and trying to make me(a viewer) believe this was real...absolute failure. I've enjoyed The blair witch, paranormal activity, abnormal activity, grave encounters....but this, this is not on par...it's rubbish. I could not keep focus, it was just very boring.

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• the magician, the star and the fool

  thetimemeddler2011-10-21

  A story about three tarot cards. The magician, the star and the fool. Let me start off by saying I'm a hardcore horror movie fanatic in my 40's, I've seen them all kiddies. I was looking forward to seeing this, I've heard it was 'shaky cam' 'blair witch' 'paranormal activity' with some satanic cult stuff thrown in. Man was I disappointed. This is the 'debut feature from director Lee Alliston and Scott Bates' written by Scott Bates Look at it this way, if you were given an opportunity to create a horror film. would you not go all out and do something truly amazing that would literally turn the genre upside-down. I mean something that people would be talking about for years to come and still get shivers. I can not understand why or how people get such an incredible opportunity... and this is the best script they can write. This movie is absolute garbage. CONTAINS SPOILERS About an hour of absolute nothing, then the final 17 minutes of 'shaky cam' running about. 2 people get stabbed 'off camera' (of course) END OF SPOILERS This movie even had a 'devil worship adviser' listed in the final credits, well he forgot to tell them the correct spelling of Belzeebob among just about anything else of any importance whatsoever pertaining to 'devil worship' The creepiest thing about this movie is the insane clown posse scarecrow in the trailer, and the fact I just spent 77 minutes of my life on this.

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• I could not wait until they will kill them!

  the_wolf_imdb2012-02-18

  All right, it goes like this: Three totally annoying idiotic British characters walk around thinking they are so cool and great. They have absolutely no respect to anyone, no survival skills, not even basic reasoning. They have only their Puma bags, glittering dresses, super big egos, they want "to be famous, to be rich, to kick some ass". So they have decided to put themselves in the middle of the trouble just for fun and that's all. I have felt some sympathy to the heroes of the most "found footage" movies, but this trio of imbeciles is just annoying. They can not even shut up or switch off their phones. I have wished so hard that someone finally puts them out of their misery! They have just asked for that. They have just asked for that. This is not a horror movie. This is God's punishment for their arrogance and stupidity. It is almost painful to watch the "fun and cool actions" of "the heroes" for the most of the movie but they finally get what they have asked for. So basically the movie ends well. The movie is not that bad but the characters are really super-annoying.

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• Slightly Above Average Found Footage Horror

  Chaosmetal692011-10-22

  Let's keep it simple here. Found footage horror is my favorite sub-genre of horror and i've seen quite a bit of them. This one here in short without spoilers is "trespassing gone wrong". The characters, acting etc are all good no problems there. Mostly in the "not enough scares" part that this kind of lacked for me personally. However it is still worth watching in my opinion just don't get your hopes too high for it. I mostly would recommend it if you ran out of this sub-genre to watch and needed another one to tide you over until you see the next paranormal activity or something like that. Last 15 minutes of the movie are where its at and with a short run time which is the way these movies should be. You don't got much to lose so give it a go. 6-6.5/10

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• Fails in most respects

  sarahfirman2011-12-19

  I quite like the found footage sub-genre, and I like Britissh horror generally, so this held some promise for me. What a let down. Unfortnunately, the film simply fails on most levels. I've seen my share of bad horror (in fact I've seen three other terrible horror films this evening), but rarely have I seen a film that sets out with clear, easily attainable objectives and yet manages to miss every mark. Firstly, that pacing is flawed. I see what they were going for. I'm all for building character, having 'nothing happen' so that when something happens it is creepy and impactful. However, not only is there no ominous atmosphere, there is little in the way of characterisation. The protagonists we an amalgam of stereotyped traits: clearly the screenwriter saw some of Noel Clarke's films and added as many slang terms as they could in order to make the "kids" seem "real": the result is as stilted and distancing as it sounds. Part of the problem is that the actors themselves either didn't believe in the material (who could blame them) or are just not very good. Wooden, unconvincing and entirely lacking chemistry. Regardless of how one feels about Blair Witch, one of the the reasons that film became so iconic was because the actors did a great job. The context (three actors, two camcorders, no special effects, natural light/sound) means all that is left is the interactions - without actors that can carry the material, the film is doomed from the outset. The director's misunderstanding of the material and context is underscored by the "subliminal" foreshadowing insert shots throughout: these are badly edited, being on screen for the wrong amount of time - like a joke, timing is everything in these cases. Shorter or longer would have worked better, but the length and frequency renders them ineffective. Moreover, it would work if they were naturalised by the camcorder context, but the filmmakers fail to integrate them into the 'found footage' in a naturalistic way (say what you will about August Underground, but that form of editing is something Vogel manages to to extremely well). All in all, considering the film is constituted by a bunch of clichés, i am shocked that it didn't manage to be effective at some point or other, but somehow it did. My advice is to avoid this, and watch just about anything else instead

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