The Poughkeepsie Tapes

For the most part, I have a real problem with found footage movies because they are boring and terrible. Not all of them, certainly. I like Cloverfield and plan on seeing Cannibal Holocaust one of these days, and I kind of remember enjoying Diary Of The Dead, too.
But then there's stuff like The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity where, even if the premise is interesting (I got completely swept up in the Blair Witch phenomenon until I saw the movie and my appreciation dropped to zero), the execution never manages to be anything but brainmeltingly boring.
The Poughkeepsie Tapes found a great way around that: rather than just showing the audience the Poughkeepsie Tapes, which would have been probably just a huge bore, they present a documentary about the Poughkeepsie Tapes, which makes for a far more fascinating and harrowing movie.
We get to listen to FBI agents talk about their investigation trying to find the guy, they talk to family members of his victims, they talk about things he's done, how he's managed to evade capture and, in addition to all of that, they show segments from the Poughkeepsie Tapes.
The tapes are a record the killer keeps of everyone he kills. They were found by the FBI in an abandoned house. And they're horrible to watch.
Not that we see much of them; more the highlight reel, I guess. Again, which is better, because it skips the boring bits. The only downside is, it detracts a bit from the illusion that this is a real documentary about real video tapes of real murder and mutilation; if it were real, the filmmakers would not be so crass as to show some of the footage that we see in the movie (cutting up a body, slashed throats, that sort of thing).
That being said, though, it's a fascinating movie and a damn good one and I highly recommend it.
The problem is, it never saw an official release so you can only see it via Youtube or questionable download sites. Which, honestly, I think kind of plays into the movie's favor. A documentary that never got to see the light of day because it was too controversial or something like that. But I do think the last thing said in the movie was truly meant to be seen / heard in a movie theater; it could have been chilling but you just don't get the same effect watching it at home alone.

End of line.
-Sally