Tape 407 – Horror On The Fly

Found footage movies are like karaoke – they just won’t go away. That’s ultimately the legacy of the mega-craptacular The Blair Witch Project (1999), which was made with a hand-held camera, zero special effects, no witch or anyone named Blair, and became one of the most profitable films of all time. And because those types of movies are so cheap to make/hype, they’re unfortunately here to stay.

Tape 407 is yet another of those lost/found footage “movies,” boasting “lost footage too real for reality and too disturbing for fiction.” I doubt it. In it, a commercial New Year’s Eve flight heading to Los Angeles from New York, hits severe turbulence. Ka-BOOM – plane crashes in a remote government testing area. How convenient. Fortunately, one of the two teen girls aboard has a hand-held camera that never seems to run out of battery power, and keeps it rolling. And what she captures on film is the premise of Tape 407. (Don’t know why the tape reference as the camera is digital. Maybe it’s in reference to one of 407 rolls of Scotch™ tape she had in her luggage. Hey, people have tried to smuggle weirder things.)

The few bloodied survivors are a bit upset that there won’t be any bar cart service. I certainly would be. In fact, I’d demand a full refund. One by one, they are pursued and presumably eaten by the predators that come out of the dark, because that’s what predators do. As part of the top secret Mesa Project, these creatures/mutants/aliens/models/actresses terrorize the humans with the promise of a “whirlwind ride” and a “twist ending” that will leave the viewer “breathless,” “shocked” and “terrified.” If only. These lost/found footage movies are more visually annoying than scary, giving you a headache with all the camera jerking, blinding edits and painfully loud dialogue (i.e., screaming.)

Note: The Blair Witch Project had a budget of $500,000 and grossed nearly $249 million. Paranormal Activity, released in 2009, had a budget of $15,000 and raked in $194 million. I’m selling my car and buying a hand-held camera. I’ll make a casting call announcement here shortly for my own found footage movie, The Beer Witch Project. The script is in the can. Heh.