Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Maleeha Vincent It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

sarahfirman 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

Ralphus2 "The Tapes" begins slowly...and proceeds at a slow pace...and remains in first gear for roughly the first hour until things start to happen in the last twenty minutes or so. And much of what does finally happen happens in near-total darkness. It's the film's boringness and lack of interest and action, primarily, that makes it such an unrewarding watch and impossible to recommend.I say 'primarily' because there's also the whole hand-held camera thing. And there's also the fact that the main characters are such annoying w***ers that it's a real ordeal trying to stay the distance.About this last point first. The evening prior to watching "The Tapes" I happened to watch Barbet Schroeder's "More" (1969) (featuring a Pink Floyd soundtrack, incidentally). The most irritating thing about watching "More" was that the male lead was the most obnoxious a**hole I'd encountered in quite a while. It really made the film hard to persist with and near impossible to care about his fate. Then, the very next day, I was treated to this trio of d***s. Do film-makers not realize that their audiences have to 'hang out', so to speak, with their characters for about an hour and a half and, as with real life, if they're too annoying, too whiny, too much like complete f***-heads, you'll soon want to get the heck out of there! I understand if it's the point of the film or if the annoying ones get killed off in gloriously brutal manner, drawing a cheer from the audience, but to have us sit with them till the end is just trying our patience! There have been plenty of these hand-held, home video type films recently. I've enjoyed some but, as with most fads, if the gimmick's over-done it soon becomes tiresome. I feel there are actually two closely related sub-genres at work here. One is the 'found footage' premise. "The Tapes" makes a half-hearted nod in that direction. As does "Gacy House". "The Poughkeepsie Tapes" is a more concerted example. (Both are terrible films, by the way.) I believe Ruggero Deodato's "Cannibal Holocaust" is the progenitor of the conceit, while "The Blair Witch Project" brought it into current favor. The other sub-genre is the actual hand-held 'video style'. Perhaps Michael Powell's controversial "Peeping Tom" (1960) is the distant relative here. There have been plenty of examples of this style over the last few years: "Rec.", "Cloverfield", and the "Paranormal Activity" films (though these last feature CCTV rather than hand-held video) to name but a few.These two sub-genres tend to co-mingle often. One of the flaws in "The Tapes" is it belongs to the latter group but makes a half-cocked attempt to play into the former. At the very beginning a police officer tells us about the tapes and a little later a brother of one of the soon-to-be victims has his say too. But as the film goes on these elements are forgotten and the film plays out (in darkness!) as a hand-held video (notwithstanding the on-screen text at the very end). And of course, if you don't like the jumpy, jerky hand-held style, as many don't, this will annoy also.This review is getting out of hand! I was struck to say something about the connection with the idea of a 'snuff' film that comes with these video style hybrids, but I'll save that for another day.In short, this film attempts to cash in on the hand-held video and found-footage fads that are current at the moment. It fails at being a convincing example of the latter and ends up being just another run-of-the-mill example of the former. For horror fans, it's the sheer boringness of "The Tapes" and the almost complete lack of either gore or scares that will render it entirely dismissible. The 'chav' characters (for 'chav', see Wikipedia) are the 'icing on the cake' that make the film entirely unpalatable. I gave it 2/10 as I tend to reserve a score of 1 for Ulli Lommel films. But 0 or 1 would actually be appropriate scores for this rubbish. Even the fairly decent acting, which, in fairness it kind of is, isn't enough to save this drivel. Hopefully the next would-be film-maker with a lame-o idea for a film will spare us the hand-held found-footage melange and do something less passé. Please!

Chaosmetal69 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

Mercury Rapids There are mild spoilers here...As I browsed the DVD section of my local supermarket this morning, I was surprised to see a film called The Tapes. I scooped it up and paid for it... as you do.The film tells us that three people, Gemma, Nathan and Danny, have come to sticky ends, leaving only some video tapes behind, and that some sort of cult is responsible. We see a police detective and various family members and we're told that the families have allowed 'the tapes' to be shown. Gemma is a Big Brother hopeful and talks Danny and Nathan into filming a showreel to help her get on the show. Danny is her boyfriend. God knows what she sees in him, because he's a complete prat. Nathan is clearly the strongest, most grounded member of the group.They hear about 'swingers parties' that take place at a nearby farm and decide that it would be a good subject for Gemma's showreel. They break into the farm and wait for the 'swingers' to turn up. Unfortunately, these people are devil worshippers. You can guess what happens.While The Tapes passed some time, it is, to be honest, a bit dull. For the vast majority of the film, we're watching Danny being an idiot, Gemma being an Essex Girl wannabe and Nathan losing his temper at Danny's antics. When the action kicks in, it's over in a flash and we mostly get shots where it's way too dark to see anything or we just see footage of the ground as our 'heroes' are legging it. But it isn't terrible. The characters are actually quite likable - except for Danny - and you don't really want to see them come to harm. I'll recommend The Tapes only because it's a cheap buy from your local Asda!