‘Man Finds Tape’ Review: The Most Surprising Found-Footage Horror Movie in Ages

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The scariest part of found-footage horror movies is how they make you feel like you’re trapped in the terrifying events as they happen, with no way to look away.

Using a first-person viewpoint makes the audience feel like they’re in control, but it’s an illusion. Even if you’d make different choices, the story forces you to witness a terrifying and inevitable spiral into chaos. Directors Peter Hall and Paul Gandersman effectively use this technique in their first feature film, Man Finds Tape.

At first glance, the film seems like many other horror movies that use the loneliness of small towns – and how religion can make it worse – to create scares. But it quickly takes a strange turn, drawing inspiration from directors like David Cronenberg, H.P. Lovecraft, and Steven Soderbergh (particularly his films Unsane and Presence). Be warned: it might make you never want to watch old home movies again.

What makes Man Finds Tape so compelling is watching Hall and Gandersman slowly unravel the mystery, realizing that even just watching unclear, old footage can be deeply unsettling. The film centers on Lynn Page (Kelsey Pribilski), who’s making a documentary about her brother, Lucas (William Magnuson), a popular YouTuber known for his “Man Finds Tape” videos. The video that started it all shows a blurry figure giving something to a young Lucas.


Magnolia Pictures

Lucas can’t remember any of this and spends his life trying to uncover the truth about his past and the source of a strange recording. As he investigates, he and others begin to suspect Reverend Endicott Carr and a shadowy figure carrying a peculiar bag. The story creates a growing feeling that something dangerous is hidden beneath the surface of this quiet town, and the tension steadily increases with each new discovery.

Although called Man Finds Tape, the film actually uses multiple video sources. Lucas discovers more footage of Carr, revealing a disturbing connection between the reverend and both Lucas and Lynne’s parents. Directors Hall and Gandersman skillfully craft each new video segment as if it were a short film on its own. The film blends different types of media – Zoom calls, home videos, social media posts, and even surveillance footage – to create a cohesive narrative. The surveillance footage is particularly unsettling, featuring a chilling scene of a man seemingly hit by a car in slow motion while bystanders remain frozen and unresponsive. It’s the kind of disturbing footage that feels intrusive, but it powerfully reinforces the film’s themes and feels integral to the story.


Magnolia Pictures

Small towns are often seen as safe because everyone knows each other, but that closeness can also be a weakness. The film Man Finds Tape struggles with deciding what kind of story it wants to be. It begins like a fake documentary, but borrows so much from other styles that it’s sometimes unclear if we’re watching a real documentary or something else entirely. Despite this, the filmmakers, Hall and Gandersman, deserve credit for creating a genuinely unpredictable and surprising narrative, even with its unusual combination of elements.

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2025-12-05 23:48