This is a film I hadn't heard of it until I first got a Shudder subscription. This surprises me as found footage is my bread and butter in horror. This film is presented as a tape that was found in the aftermath of a five year old girl's birthday party. The entire titular family disappeared and this tape purports to show how this came about. What we see is a family enjoying a peaceful evening in a quiet, cabin-type home a ways away from a city. The family includes three brothers, their elderly mother, the wives of two of the brothers and the daughter of one of the couples. It's all being recorded by the youngest of the three brothers, who I believe is a teenager. The power suddenly goes out and this ultimately results in the family coming up against a group of aliens. There's a lot of unsettling atmosphere here and great acting, but the story's pacing is a little janky and all the atmosphere is kind of deflated when you finally see the aliens. I get that it was a low budget flick made in 1989, but, well...they should have stuck to what they were doing earlier in the film, which was using the darkness in this heavily wooded area and the fuzzy distant shots of an '80s camcorder to obscure the aliens. Great film ruined by goofy alien costumes, though the actors in the costumes did a great job with making their movement unsettling, at least.
Review of The McPherson Tape
