As someone who covers a lot of films, occasionally the fear sets in when watching a documentary that an incredible subject has found the wrong filmmaker, either not experienced or talented enough to do it justice and what’s compelling about it just slips away. It wouldn’t seem like an obvious premise for an actual horror film, but it did give chills – in a variety of ways – that idea somewhat forms the basis for Paul Gandersman and Peter Hall’s savvy feature debut “Man Finds Tape,” which invokes the found footage genre without ever being beholden to it.
The film centers on Lucas (William Magnuson), a content creator who finds success on his YouTube channel in taking a mysterious event captured on camera in his childhood of a stranger that visited him one night in bed. The creepy footage lends itself to becoming a viral sensation and Lucas, buoyed by the attention misguidedly begins building a mythology atop of it, asking his newfound followers to sort through a religious public access program called The Salvation Hour where Endicott Carr (John Gholson), a fire-and-brimstone Texas preacher’s sermons are thought to hold the key to identifying who the shadowy stranger actually was. As Lucas sends his fans to hunt for clues, Gandersman and Hall seem to issue their own challenge when Lucas’ sister Lynn (Kelsey Pribilski) can be heard asking in a grim voiceover at the beginning, “Is it possible that the murderers of the 21st century hide in plain sight?”
The mere question alone sets up at least one unconventional villain in “Man Finds Tape” as it implicates the viewer to some degree, envisioning the insatiable thirst for true crime and horror as a reflection of how people can be too distracted to call out evil for what it is as they entertain themselves with fanciful theories or demand an explanation for the truly unthinkable. Then again, no one is an innocent in the film where Lucas is a product of his environment, encouraged by the early popularity of his Web series to dip deeper into the family archives kept by his late parents, and Gandersman and Hall cleverly cover all their bases and show their Lone Star state roots when anyone who knows about the regional film and TV industry would be familiar with someone like them, small-town videographers who had all the technical know how and equipment in the dusty burgh of Larkin where they found steady work filming locals like Carr and installing the community surveillance system. They’re never seen as a bad parents to Lucas, but the copious amounts of footage from around town and access to a camera absent their influence was the last thing he needed.
That’s certainly the thought of his sister Lynn, who left upon their parents’ untimely death to a curious virus and returns to Larkin when he asks for her help with a video taken from the middle of town where a man can be slow-walking to his death in the middle of the street. The scene on screen is disturbing, but more so is what happens to the viewer when watching it, conking out as Lucas does to Lynn’s disbelief on a Zoom call. Lynn, a filmmaker in her own right, starts making a documentary about her brother who has to put a hold on his own filming after a confrontation with Endicott Carr leads to an apology and retraction for involving him in his conspiracy theorizing, and she can’t resist the front row seat she now has to a fresh mystery of what’s triggering these trances for people.
“Man Finds Tape” follows Lynn down the rabbit hole (culminating almost literally in a spiral sequence so visually arresting its designer Tim Buel gets a credit all his own in the end title cards) and while her descent seems without end, it’s not without purpose. Despite knowing what Lucas’ audience doesn’t as they speculate on his whereabouts and what his Web series all means online, she gets drawn in by less supernatural but no less inexplicable details in footage she rewatches. Gandersman and Hall shrewdly structure the film so that the framing of the story overwhelms what’s evident as fact with genre expectations playing into the guessing game they’ve set up in a genuinely interesting way. It can lead to the truly horrific narrative that Lynn starts to put together being a bit underdeveloped relative to Lucas’ version of events when so much legwork is required for the set-up. Still, this being a horror film, visceral gross-out moments don’t require too much to be affecting and as the puzzle regarding what’s paralyzing people in their tracks opens up a divide between rational and irrational fear and offers compelling throughline, there isn’t much of a mystery in how the film becomes so arresting itself.
“Man Finds Tape” will screen again at the Tribeca Festival on June 9th at 9:15 pm at AMC 19th St. East 6 and June 11th at 9 pm at Village East.