Review: The McPherson Tape (1989)

Directed by: Dean Alioto
Starring: Tommy Giavocchini, Patrick Kelley, Shirly McCalla
Written by: Dean Alioto
IMDb

The McPherson Tape (aka UFO Abduction) had the bad fortune of being made well before The Blair Witch Project (1999) but being mostly lost to the world until just a few years ago, thanks to a fire at the warehouse where the master tapes were stored. Because the movie went mostly unseen until a 2018 DVD release, it now feels very dated and many of its found footage devices — including “realistic dialog” (that is, random inane conversations that frequently overlap), shaky camerawork that rarely focuses where it needs to, and video glitches that portend bad things — feel like old hat, even though they were pretty groundbreaking at the time. The circumstances around its release have made the movie a bit of a cult item, though, with many UFO enthusiasts apparently mistaking it for real evidence of aliens. That mystique aside, this isn’t a particularly good movie, even by found footage standards. I am generally not a fan of the aforementioned chaotic conversations, and so much of the runtime here is filled with it. Before the movie ends, you will have heard “Oh shit!” shouted at least 2 dozen times, and it doesn’t take long for the constant hysteria to grind you down. The run-ins with the extraterrestrials are reasonably effective, especially the first encounter, but their design and stature often make them more comical than frightening. It’s obvious that this movie was the blueprint for the V/H/S 2 (2013) segment, “Slumber Party Alien Abduction,” which was much more effective, in my opinion (though that last shot … UGH). If we had been able to see The McPherson Tape when it was first released, I’m sure it would have rocked the genre, much like Blair Witch did a decade later. Instead, it’s more of an interesting historical footnote.

Rating: 4.5 out of 10