In horror, as in all genres, inventive storytelling always trumps budgets or effects, and that fact is once again demonstrated by the creatively creepy Man Finds Tape.
Filtering found-footage action through a true-crime frame while indulging in creepypasta imagery and irrationality, Paul Gandersman and Peter S. Hall’s thriller, in theaters Dec. 5, is a Frankensteinian creature feature that mixes and matches forms to tell a beguiling tale of a brother and sister confronting unholy goings-on that may have been recorded for posterity on baffling videotapes. Conjuring inhuman visions it refuses to fully explain, it’s an assured directorial debut about media reliability that unnerves by embracing the unknown.
Like so many early 21st-century J-horror efforts, Man Finds Tape is an illogical nightmare channeled through old- and new-school media, purporting to be a documentary by Lynn Page (Kelsey Pribilski) about her brother Lucas (William Magnuson). Lucas became a viral sensation thanks to online videos he made about a video cassette labeled with his name that he stumbled upon beside a fuse box in a barn on his parents’ property in Larkin, Texas.
On that tape was footage of a young Lucas sleeping in his bed, then rising as if in a trance as a shadowy figure entered the room and did something indecipherable to him. This was the beginning of Lucas’ “Man Finds Tape” series. Gandersman and Hall’s film delivers that faux-verité material via Lynn’s more traditional non-fiction feature, in which she wonders—in the context of discussing Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin’s infamous 1967 Bigfoot short, and Robert Kenneth Wilson’s iconic 1934 photograph of the Loch Ness Monster—if all monsters are a hoax or are merely hiding in plain sight.
Cameras (often pointed at the screen) are everywhere in Man Finds Tape, underscoring the proceedings’ fascination with media realism and trickery.
Opening with a flurry of sights and sounds—including everyone’s favorite true-crime trope, the 911 call that’s transcribed on-screen—Gandersman and Hall start teasing their mystery with Lucas showing Lynn a grainy, silent black-and-white clip from a security camera on Larkin’s Main Street.
In it, everyday citizens suddenly freeze in their tracks, their heads dropping so their chins are on their chests. As they stand motionless, a white van drives slowly down the street and casually runs over a man in its path. As this passage plays, Lucas’ own head drops down, suggesting that whatever force caused this supernatural scene is somehow contained within the recording.
Man Finds Tape subsequently rewinds to detail Lucas’ rise to internet fame courtesy of his tape, his investigation into its origins, and his engagement with the legions of fans who commented (positively and negatively) on his posts. Lucas’ sleuthing pointed him in the direction of Reverend Endicott Carr (John Gholson), host of The Salvation Hour, a local TV program that was originally produced by Lucas and Lynn’s parents, who instilled in them a love of filmmaking and who both died within six months of each other from a perplexing illness.
On camera, Endicott is a rather familiar sort of true believer, quoting Job and asking God to “pour out a blessing among us” and “keep us near your heart.” Lucas comes to suspect that Endicott was the enigmatic figure who visited him as a child. When he makes that claim online, he receives swift backlash from the reverend, forcing him to retract his statement and to admit that, following his initial discovery, he’d made up most of his viral plight.
Nonetheless, something strange is going on in Larkin, as Lucas determines thanks to footage of Endicott and his church flock going chin-to-chest comatose mid-sermon—footage that causes Lucas to blackout as well. Lynn, however, is unaffected by the video, and thus learns that a stranger in a long coat and carrying an old-timey medical bag was moving about the church as Endicott and his parishioners were mesmerized.
The identity of this interloper is at the heart of Man Finds Tape. Gandersman and Hall, however, first have Lynn conduct a collection of interviews with Larkin residents who were at the scene of the aforementioned van slaying, during which, upon viewing that security video, they all go lights out on camera. Making matters stranger, the same affliction previously befell Lucas and his then-girlfriend Wendy (Nell Kessler) during a car ride that ended in an accident. Weirder still, Wendy is serving as Endicott’s surrogate and nearing her delivery date.
Gandersman and Hall shift freely between formal modes, layering different devices upon each other to beget a hybrid horror show in which the truth is always hidden beneath some sort of cine-veneer. At the same time, the filmmakers provide answers that result in simply more questions, their saga carefully balanced between lucidity and impenetrability.
There’s a dash of The Ring to Man Finds Tape, as well as a touch of Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond, and all of it has to do with the untrustworthiness of religious leaders, human senses, and the recorded image. Because key pieces of information are deliberately withheld, any attempt at parsing this odyssey’s particulars is destined to lead to dead ends. Yet it’s that very unknowability that lends it its lingering power, especially as it plummets into darker, more demented territory, rife with magical hoods, incomprehensible notebooks, and slimy parasites.
Man Finds Tape amalgamates as effectively as it teases, all while recognizing that straightforward clarifications and resolutions are the enemy of lasting terror. Gandersman and Hall touch upon various intriguing issues—most notably, people’s alternately willful and rightful refusal to believe the very things they see—without ever allowing their mayhem to become preachy or to go slack.
At a tight 86 minutes, their film recognizes that intimations of the unnatural and snapshots of the inexplicable are what stoke the imagination and infect one’s dreams. In that regard, their maiden venture sharply melds conventional horror-movie customs with online creepypasta traditions. That it does so with a minimum of digital flash and a preponderance of resourceful technique further marks it as a memorably chilling indie that heralds a bright future for its first-time directors.
