Man Finds Tape (Paul Gandersman, Peter S. Hall, 2025)

In 1999, The Blair Witch Project introduced mass audiences to first person point of view filmmaking. Blair Witch wasn't the first, as Cannibal Holocaust and films like Spinal Tap incorporated first person POV into their faux documentary structures, but it was the first to suggest mass audiences would accept it, as opposed to exclusively being the realm of cult film. In 2007, Paranormal Activity came along, proving that the financial success of Blair Witch, audience acceptance of first person POV and Found Footage as a narrative structure weren't flukes. As I wrote recently about Char Man, after the success of Paranormal Activity, the flood gates were opened, and first person POV and Found Footage films began being made by the dozens. This also meant many filmmakers picking up the faux documentary narrative structure as a way to utilize its economic advantages (they can typically be made at a much lower cost), while expanding beyond a strictly Found Footage narrative structure.

The only problem with any of this, is the belief that economic constraints are the only major barrier to making a good movie by telling a story well. That found footage and faux documentaries are cheaper to make lowers the bar for entry into filmmaking as a career, but it doesn't make someone who has little experience, understanding or skills in telling a story onscreen suddenly posses those qualities. There are many terrible Found Footage and faux documentary horror films out there. There are also superb examples of filmmakers who have taken the time to understand the limits and opportunities these narrative forms offer, demonstrating the imagination to make great use of them.

To be clear, these are narrative frameworks, not genres. Found Footage, for example, can be comedy, drama or any genre really. Spinal Tap is an excellent example of the faux documentary being a comedy. The Office was a faux documentary television series, and comedy. Joel Anderson's Lake Mungo is a film I can't recommend highly enough to anyone who appreciates dramatic horror, using the faux documentary format to heartbreaking effect. For anyone who appreciates horror comedies, I'd recommend Deadstream from 2022, written and directed by the husband and wife team Joseph and Vanessa Winter. It's one of the most entertaining entries in the Screen Life sub genre, which uses the ubiquity of digital communication as its entry to first person POV narrative structures. Stephen Cognetti's Hell House LLC (2015) uses the combination of faux documentary and found footage to produce an excellent, deeply creepy, supernatural horror film. All three of these films are excellent in their use of elements of horror, but they also demonstrate faux documentary and found footage are distinct narrative forms, even as they can by spliced together and used for different varieties of creative intentions.

The writing and directing team behind Man Finds Tape, Paul Gandersman and Peter S. Hall, fall far closer to Joel Anderson and the Winters than they do the legion who've simply approached faux documentary and first person POV as a low risk financial investment in a cheap film. It's clear they've put time and effort into thinking about what makes for effective storytelling using these forms, and they care about telling an interesting, satisfying story.

It's not just in their use of these narrative techniques that shows evidence of that care and labor, but also the degree to which the film is very clear about certain aspects of what it has to say about the world we're living in, without being didactic. It's a rare skill to be able to be this direct, without the story falling into feeling like a lecture. Man Finds Tape demonstrates Gandersman and Hall as writers and directors who are able to walk the invisible line between confidence in what they have to say, and discipline in preserving the experience the story is meant to provide the audience. What Man Finds Tape has to say about a specific kind of petty tyrant that exists across the nation, and the vulnerability of those petty tyrants to other would be tyrants whose ambitions are much greater, is necessary, insightful and incisively woven through the story. There are filmmakers working on films with budgets into the hundreds of millions of dollars, lacking a hand this deft in this aspect of storytelling.

Part of what makes Man Finds Tape an excellent watch, is the boldness of its venture into one of the sub genres of horror less often explored via faux documentary. There's an expert understanding of how to use this narrative form in revealing pieces of the story as part of this well known sub genre, with it's own long history. Gandersman and Hall understand the process of exploration and revelation that is central to the sub genre, as well as how to use the faux documentary form, first person POV and the Screen Life narrative forms to create a film that is at points deeply creepy, fun and familiar, while also being unpredictable.

In its first few minutes, Man Finds Tape seems like it would fit with the lesser documentary programming common to True Crime or the search for cryptids. It could easily be mistaken for one of the more rote and uninspired Discovery documentary entries or others Netflix and Amazon pick up to pad their catalogs. Cable television and streaming services are awash in these. The understanding of the crossover between the audience for horror and this kind of programming is shrewdly used too. There is always a danger of creating an experience that feels more like a cheap trick than a genuine understanding of the media a film is trying to emulate and subvert. Gandersman and Hall avoid all of this, delivering an opening lulling the audience into the comfort of familiarity with the media Man Finds Tape is emulating, deftly managing the tension between emulation and subversion as the movie continues, culminating in a very different experience than what they're emulating could contain.

This is a thoughtful, fun, smartly written, interesting film, and it shouldn't be tossed in with the hack work too many first person POV and found footage films are.

I'll be looking forward to what Paul Gandersman and Peter S. Hall have for us in the future. With the boost in visibility given Man Finds Tape by having Aaron Moorehead, Justin Benson and C. Robert Cargill come aboard as producers, I can hope the film does well and Gandersman and Hall get the opportunity to make another film sooner, rather than later.

You can currently find Man Finds Tape on all of the major VOD platforms. Depending on when you're reading this, it's worth checking justwatch.com to see if any of the streaming services have picked it up.