Movie Review: “Man Finds Tape”

I am not a huge fan of found-footage films, mostly because the shaky handheld style. But Man Finds Tape lured me in, mostly by the title. Somehow, tapes found and released by other people is always more fascinating to me.

Man Finds Tape is a strange film that lacks any sense of a timeline – which seems to be the important part of a “found footage” movie. The “man” in this case is Lucas Page, who found a tape in his parents creepy barn with his name on it. This tape seems to be of Lucas as a child, being visited by an unknown person. Lucas turns this into a YouTube series, “Man Finds Tape” and becomes viral. He IDs the unknown adult as the local pastor, Endicott Carr. Lawyers get involved, Lucas has to apologize, the whole thing is a mess.

Until a new batch of videos pop up. Lucas’ parents were videographers and set up security cameras all over town, which somehow means that Lucas and his sister Lynn now have access to all the cameras in town, and all the recordings the cameras have ever made. Ignoring the improbability of all that, Lucas has a new problem: some videos are making Larkin residents blackout. Since Lynn moved out of town a few years ago, she doesn’t suffer the blackouts, so she is tasked with figuring out what the hell is going on.

Again, I’m stuck on the idea that the timeline is nonsensical. I had to watch the movie twice before I figured out that the tape found in the barn was the start of the “Man Finds Tape” thing. But it didn’t get any better. The movie seemed uncertain of when it was describing the original “Man Finds Tape” series and when it was exploring whatever the black-out videos were. There was one woman who was pregnant at some parts – this only made it worse. I was wondering why we were going back and forth between when she was pregnant, what happened before and after.

In general, there was a lot going on in this movie, and there were answers to none of it. In addition to the blackouts, there were these little parasite-like things called feeders. There is the priest, who are almost always bad in films like this. Plus, the pregnant woman was the surrogate for Carr. He doesn’t have a partner, and yet he wants a child. What for?

You get no explanation for most of this stuff. You get basic answers, but not enough for me to be satisfied. On the upside, the camera was pretty much stable for the entirety of the film.

Man Finds Tape is in select theaters and on-demand December 5th.