The Poughkeepsie Tapes and every trope imaginable
I, like many young people both before and since, remember coming of age and being fascinated with the dark corners of our world. It started with Stephen King novels, but soon enough I came upon a copy of Vincent Bugliosiâs Helter Skelter. How does your brain reckon with sudden exposure to things from which you had previously been protected? Itâs a powerful moment when you discover that the world can be truly horrible. Itâs like being wounded in a new way, and for some, you keep picking at the scab.Â
As adults, a massive genre has grown up around this particular scab. âSometimes when you share an anxiety, it alleviates it a little bit,â said Karen Kilgariff on an early episode of My Favorite Murder. This podcast was an early example of the true crime genre exploding in popularity. âThat shit to me is like, âTell me everything so I can avoid it!ââ said co-host Georgia Hardstark.Â
âThatâs what all of this is, really,â Kilgariff replied. âI just want to collect information and hear theories and stories, so that I can be braced.â This, of course, is an illusion. That we can fend off thoughtless danger by being prepared for it is comforting, but itâs a lie. The scab remains, begging to be picked. This is the context in which The Poughkeepsie Tapes exists: these anxieties have manifested countless media surrounding murder and crime - perhaps in an effort to control our anxieties, perhaps in an effort to cash in.
In any case, John Erick Dowdleâs little 2007 found footage-style mockumentary is easy to miss amidst a mass of horror films, thrillers, and true crime documentaries. Its eventual release was on DirectTV, meaning that unless you were searching, you may have never heard of it. It is a far from perfect film, but it is a perfect prototype. Tapes identifies every iteration of our cultureâs crime and murder anxieties and builds them into a film.Â
Tapes promises to terrorize you with taped evidence of violence and torture (and trust me, this movie wants you to be sure that the contents of these tapes are the WORST things you could EVER imagine). But at its core, Tapes trafficks in a very different type of scare tactic: a collection of every possible salacious trope that the true crime industrial complex has to offer. This movie is here to assure us that the monsters in our closets are real, that they are among us, and they are ready to snatch us from our beautiful, well-tended front lawns at any moment.Â
The film follows one specific monster who goes through most of the movie without a name (although eventually during his spree he is called âThe Water Street Butcherâ). This killer is, of course, the creator of the titular tapes, noteworthy not just for their content, but for their scope - there are hundreds and hundreds dedicated to just one victim, Cheryl Dempsey.Â
Cherylâs case bookends the film. It is teased at the beginning as the quintessential, most graphic incidence of these crimes. The big sell is that these tapes upset and alarm even the most grizzled crime professionals. âIâve NEVER seen ANYTHING so bad!â they say of the tapeâs contents. The wife of an employee tasked with reviewing the tapes accidentally watched part of one. âIt took a year before she let me touch her again,â he says. The hype surrounding these tapes (and their presumed content) is a big part of what sets the tone going forward. Itâs an example of filmmaking telling instead of showing, but it also builds a certain tension - the viewer is allowed to imagine the worst. What could possibly astonish these veteran agents and detectives?
Law enforcement is the main character of this film. Using techniques weâre already familiar with from non-fiction crime documentaries - forensics talking heads, 911 call recordings, victimâs families interviews, coronerâs reports, crime scene photos - the film leans into the âitâs worse than you thinkâ narrative. One profiler explicitly assures us that at any given time there are as many as 25 to 50 active serial killers.Â
The risk of being murdered is painted as a big, unknowable, inexplicable problem, and it tells us a narrative we love about true crime: These monsters are not us. We need to be kept separate and protected. Only those with specialized training or expertise can save us, which is why most of Tapes is delivered to us through FBI and forensics talking heads.
The highest value talking head here is an FBI profiler. We follow him as he tries to crack the code of a fundamentally evil psyche. This ends up being the true function of the tapes - we see the crimes through the butcherâs eyes. We hear his voice and feel his breathing as he talks to a child he will kidnap or a couple who has just picked him up from hitchhiking. With the insights found on these tapes and the evidence from previous murders, our talking heads try to unravel the identity of this killer.Â
There is one problem: the butcher is too inscrutable to find. We see law enforcement track his techniques of finding, kidnapping, and torturing his victims, only to find a messy hodge podge of our greatest fears about serial killers. The butcher plots and hides his crimes like an âorganizedâ killer (detached, careful, and strategic), but he mutilates them like a âdisorganizedâ killer (theatrical, reckless, personal). He seemingly takes great care to evade police, but he also leads them on. The evidence at some crime scenes indicate the crime of an amateur, but at other times he seems like a skilled veteran. He at times seems cold hearted and composed, but other times mentally unstable.Â
The butcher is a âGreatest Hitsâ record of the tropes we hear about serial killers, and the more footage we see, the harder it is to see a clear picture of him. The law enforcement specialists describe him as a chameleon, suggesting that the fact that he has no distinct MO means that he is somehow a brilliant or spellbinding villain.
In presenting this narrative, Tapes is suggesting that there is something inherently interesting about murder, torture, and predatory behavior. In reality, this is simply lazy writing. Itâs very easy to just throw up your hands and go âWe CANâT POSSIBLY dive into this guyâs character, because he is ALL OF THE THINGS youâre afraid of!â
This returns us to the bigger conversation about stories like this one. We are fascinated by evils that canât possibly be understood. It makes us feel like they are so far outside of us that we donât have to reckon with the concepts of who commits crime and why - how could we even begin to? Weâre only human, after all.
The idea of an indiscriminate, purely evil killer allows us to separate the violence from aspects like race, economics, and the systems of law enforcement in our communities. In Tapes, the law enforcement is made up of people trying their best to protect us, only to be outsmarted by greater evil forces. In the event that detectives or cops do triumph, they are heroes. Good prevails. Tapes cranks these narratives up to eleven and blows them out through giant speakers: Your fears are real. We are doing our best to protect you from the unfathomable.Â
This comforting myth obscures the fact that killers are human. Even the worst crimes are stories of people.
Because Tapes did not have a wide release, no one interrogated its methods. For folks who specifically seek out this particular flavor of horror, it is a serviceable addition to the found footage genre. It creates tension by treading the line between upsetting images and whatever implied horrors lie just beyond the camera. Outside of these moments, there is not enough skillful acting or writing to deliver any emotional impact. Itâs neither a particularly moving or especially gruesome film. For fans who are well acquainted with murder-gore, thereâs nothing new to see. Itâs simply a movie that chooses its tropes, and commits fully to them.














