FilmFound Footage Sci-Fi Horror

The Phoenix Tapes '972016

Name: The Phoenix Tapes '97
Genre: Found Footage, Sci-Fi Horror
Released: 2016-09-26
Rating: 6

Directed by Turner Clay

6.0

Crypt Score

Blended from 2 sources

IMDb 5.4TMDB 6.6

✍ Review

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Year

2016

Runtime

67 min

The premise

In 1997, four campers went missing during the Phoenix Lights incident and their bodies were never found. The Phoenix Tapes 97 is comprised of their final footage. This film is dedicated to the lives lost during the events displayed. To their families and friends and to the authorities who continue to search for answers. The tapes were found by Dustin Miller's father two years after Dustin was mysteriously shot and killed at a traffic stop in Texas. Peter Miller believes his son was acting as a whistleblower and had smuggled the tapes from his classified government agency in an effort to expose the truth as to what really happened to the four missing campers seen in the tapes. After searching every newspaper and media publication around Phoenix during that time period, we only found one initial announcement that four campers were reported missing, as well as a formal police report folder with local PD but the folder had no files inside.

Horror Vault's take

Set against the backdrop of the real 1997 Phoenix Lights UFO event, this found-footage film presents itself as the recovered camera recordings of four campers who vanished without a trace. The footage is framed by a father's desperate search for answers after a trail of suspicious deaths and missing files points toward a deliberate suppression of the truth. Blurring the line between documentary and fiction, it builds a slow-burn atmosphere of dread rooted in one of America's most famous unexplained phenomena. Fans of grounded, grittily realistic UFO horror will find its pseudo-documentary approach deeply unnerving.

Content: Disturbing Themes Of Disappearance And Death, Depiction Of Off-Screen Violence