The latest found footage horror flick, Man Finds Tape, examines a strange mystery affecting an entire town that mostly works.
Man Finds Tape
Directed By: Paul Gandersman and Peter S. Hall
Written By: Paul Gandersman and Peter S. Hall
Starring: Nell Kessler, William Magnuson, Kelsey Pribilski, Brian Villalobos
Release Date: December 5, 2025
Man Finds Tape takes the traditional idea of the found-footage genre, which tends to put the focus on a couple characters and the odd, oftentimes paranormal, events that happen to them, and puts a different twist on it. It’s not merely the main characters who are affected, but an entire town in which no one seems able to even remember something terrible is happening to them. It makes for an intriguing idea from the first scenes and helps set it apart from others in this genre.
From the outset, Man Finds Tape presents itself as a big mystery. It follows the story of two siblings, Lucas and Lynn Page (William Magnuson and Kelsey Pribilski), both of whom have a love of filmmaking thanks to their parents. Where Lucas has shifted towards the more modern approach of YouTube/viral video creation, Lynn goes a more traditional route. It’s through her perspective, in the form of a documentary she’s making, that most of the story is presented (complete with talking head interviews and all).
Lucas’ claim to fame is from starting a YouTube channel in which he discovers a mysterious tape (with his name on it) in his childhood home. What he sees on there is inexplicable and leads him, and his viewers, down some dark conspiracies. The problem, however, is he’s largely making it up for views. But those kernels of truth reveal a deeper, more terrifying secret that’s enveloped their whole town.
This is where Lynn’s documentary comes into play. When Lucas reaches out to her with footage of a man killed in the middle of their hometown’s main street, where everyone nearby seemingly falls asleep and doesn’t notice what happened, she decides to take him seriously and investigate.
The bulk of the moving is walking the audience through this mystery, which manages to get more disturbing, and creepy, as Lynn and Lucas begin to uncover more of the truth. How it unfolds is cleverly handled through the combination of documentary footage, old public access footage, security cameras, and the like. Thanks to the nature of the characters and how the story is presented, it makes sense for the cameras to capture everything it does. It successfully dodges the logic problems some found-footage films face in which the audience finds themselves wondering “why are they filming this.”
We all know I’m a sucker for found footage stuff. Something about the whole approach to telling a story this way is so damn appealing and I’m glad to see the genre is still continuing, even if the results tend to get a little mixed.
For better, and worse, that’s a fairly apt description for Man Finds Tape. It’s got some solid ideas and presentation, making it one of the more engaging—modern—found footage movies I’ve seen in a while. Which is almost entirely upended by a final act that doesn’t quite work.
For the first couple acts, Man Finds Tape expertly builds the tension and sucks you into the mystery. There’s a sense of something terrifying waiting in every corner that keeps you on edge while you watch new footage and revelations happen.
Where Man Finds Tape stumbles, is in the latter act. Namely, everything after “the reveal” of what’s happening in the town and through to the end credits. Yes, obviously the film has to reveal its mystery at some point but the execution here is…off. It’s hard to fully explain (especially when avoiding spoilers), but there’s a point where the movie shifts from tension-filled, slow building terror to a cheesy B-movie.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m always down for some silly creature feature stuff, but it’s a dramatic tonal shift. It happens so quickly it almost felt like they weren’t sure how they wanted the story to go and just threw it together.
From that point forward, the film feels at odds with how it was previously presented. We’re suddenly given a new character whose role initially seems to be the “lore keeper” and serves as the explainer to the audience. His role is shifted ultimately as well, but there’s so little time left in the story at this point it feels like a rushed decision. That’s not to mention the fact the “documentary” format manages to giveaway the Stranger’s real intentions long before it happens.
It’s weird and the execution winds up expending all the goodwill the first two-thirds of the movie builds up. As a result, we’re given an ending comes off both unsatisfying and anti-climatic. The “villain” we’d been prepped to encounter essentially becomes a non-factor, and the new stuff introduced doesn’t have enough time to flesh out into something equally engaging. By the time the credits rolled I felt like I’d finished up a pilot episode for a series, rather than a complete story.
