Horror Movie Review: Destroy This Tape (2025)

A rare example of found footage actually being a positive thing, Destroy This Tape’s best moments are when the film focuses on that side of things. Alas, directors Carter Folkes and Sean McGarry choose to take their film in a different direction for most of its runtime, and it’s all the worse for it.

The premise is so simple. Taking place in 2007, it follows the story of a group of friends who disappeared in the woods of Alpine Oaks Provincial Park. All that was found at their campsite was a camcorder containing their last moments. This has got the attention of Jacob Peterson (Matt Hall), who is a true-crime author desperately looking for his next big story in an attempt to stay relevant.

The story of the missing campers is perfect for Jacob’s book, so he sets about trying to uncover all the details about their disappearance.

It’s a familiar story and Destroy This Tape doesn’t do much to the formula, except to brazenly drop the horror in favour of a murder mystery investigation that lacks thrills and chills. This is where it all goes wrong.

You’ll rarely hear me advocating for found footage, especially found footage as rough as this, but it works here. Not only does it make sense for the story, but it fits and is handled in clever fashion. Yes, all the tropes are here, but they’re here for a reason and it makes for a compelling watch. So, imagine my surprise when all of this is dropped a third of the way through the film.

Again, there’s a way to make this work, but one way to fail is to make it so procedural and so humdrum. Another is to the make the lead so unlikable, you’ll find yourself rooting for his demise. This is not a character you love to hate; it’s just a character you hate.

I don’t get it either. The whole film is so formulaic, why bother shifting style and tone? It’s not about being creative, as what we get isn’t that, nor is it about making things more complex, because everything is so simple. Be simple, but be good, and the moment Destroy This Tape switches, it stops being good.

It’s enough to make this one to miss, I’m afraid, even if I do think the first third is worth checking out. If only for the retro style of found footage that it employs. I’m pretty sure they filmed this section on a camera that needs to be wound up by hand. It’s incredibly authentic looking, even though I can’t promise you that it’s that watchable.

You won’t find me praising this sort of thing often, and it all certainly looks better in comparison to what comes after, but the reality is that being formulaic matters less when you do it well.

It doesn’t matter though as all anyone will remember is what the film does badly, and there’s a lot of that to remember.