Rating: 2/5
Oh My Horror 2025 | 2/52 | Found Footage
The film begins with the funeral of Cheryl Dempsey, a murder victim of serial killer Edward Carver. We then step back to when police officers raided Carver’s home, finding over 800 tapes Carver made of the murders and mutilations of his victims. A substantial subset of the recordings are about Cheryl.
An FBI agent teaches a class about the killer, warning the students about the graphic nature of the tapes. Then, we spend a lot of the movie watching these tapes.
The strange contrast of the movie acting like a true crime documentary while showing such graphic footage from the tapes is the first sign that these filmmakers don’t know what they’re doing.
From there, we get interviews with actors who can barely keep a straight face, reenactment footage fit for Unsolved Mysteries, and more of these warped tapes (warped in the digital effects they used to make the movie look like VHS footage). We switch between experts claiming this killer is a mastermind while watching the killer performing commedia dell’arte-inspired murders.
The film is not a disaster — it has uneasy and horrifying moments. Also, it remains a cult favorite for a reason.
I’d be curious to see the intersection of true crime fans and fans of this movie.