Interesting found footage anthology structures itself around one man’s dangerous ambitions to catch a trans-dimensional entity on camera. That’s the basis of the wraparound titled To Catch a Demon which picks up with his research partners discovering their barebones lab-space unsecured, in disarray and their research partner missing. They check out the footage on the rolling camera to see just what the hell happened. The whole idea is that time fluctuations are where these entities labeled demons and spirits kind of exist between our known realities. The plan is to harness the human’s REM state (the closest match to the actual time fluctuation where supernatural things dwell) and allow one to view said things that go bump in the night. While this is going on, we dip into other encounters that have a tenuous connection to the researcher’s film and spooky shit happens. In The Hunters & the Hunted a husband and wife move into a fully furnished house in the hills. Their excitement turns to horror when some creepy shit starts up. Phantom footsteps, spooky knocks and moving objects get the husband thinking they should have a camera rolling at all times to document the strangeness. They bring in some paranormal investigators as things get aggressive. The ghost hunters see this as a ticket to hitting it big but the malicious nature of this haunting has some other plans in store for the trio of investigators. Some genuine chills and a satisfying ending make this pretty damn solid. After an awesome creature reveal in our anchoring segment and revelations of a pretty big problem, we hit up the next entry with Cam Girls. A cam girl is having blackouts as she and her girlfriend party hard with the money they’re making off of their shows. Things escalate as manipulation leads to physical violence and physical violence leads to one horrific revelation as to just what our concerned leading lady’s new girlfriend is actually up to. Flashes of cheap-looking fright makeup may have you rolling your eyes but the manipulation of the sad guy watching the show is the right amount of depressing. It all feels a little bit like a high schoolers short horror film that had some input from a teacher who knew what they were going for but didn’t want to take the reigns. It’s not too offensive but it’s definitely the weakest entry up to this point. Another revelation awaits our team of scientists as the head of the experiment realizes that no matter what things you uncover as you look where man was not meant to look, there’s always something worse just waiting to get in. Finally, Amanda’s Revenge hits and we watch a young woman slowly unravel the strangeness enveloping her life following an attempted rape at a friend’s party. Seems this was a trigger incident because there’s some bizarre crap in her past involving her mother murdering her father and intense weirdness. She crashes by her friend’s house and asks her three friends to watch over her while she sleeps. Telekinesis, aliens, self defense, friendship and sulphuric acid in water balloons all have their part to play as the drama unfolds. It’s all pretty fun and features a couple likable leads. Our main story comes to a close, time gets a little wonky and there’s a few bad ends in store for people. Outside of the shaky middle story, Dark Tapes is a winner which manages to keep things interesting and utilizes the found footage format to get past budgetary constraints.
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