Destroy This Tape (2025) horror movie review - A disappointing found footage misstep

Welcome to Knockout Horror. Today we are reviewing the found-footage-ish horror film Destroy This Tape (2025). Selecting low budget horror movies on Tubi is a little like the entertainment equivalent of playing Russian Roulette. You spin the proverbial cylinder by opening the horror section, place the barrel against your head by picking a film, and then pull the trigger by pressing play.

Sometimes it works. The gun doesn’t go off and you feel a sigh of relief as you settle down to enjoy a decent movie. Other times, you simply run out of luck and “BANG!”… You are left watching something utterly disappointing. You can probably guess where I am going with this review thanks to that segue.

Destroy This Tape takes place in 2007 and follows the story of a group of friends who disappeared after camping in the woods of Alpine Oaks Provincial Park. All that was left behind from their campsite was a camcorder containing their last moments. Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery for his next book, an author heads into the woods to search for clues.

Destroying the Formula

Let’s be honest, there’s very little you can do to revolutionise found-footage horror or even to bring something new and refreshing to the genre. It’s all been done before and, as a consequence, most films produced in this style follow fairly similar blueprints. Grab a camera, find a spooky location, orchestrate some scares, improvise the dialogue, and film literally everything.

It’s not all that complicated and, often, it works tremendously well. After all, the keys to success are pretty obvious. Stick to the formula, create characters people care about, and try to do whatever you can to make the film scary or intense. Loner is a great example of recent found-footage horror done well and The Decedent is, perhaps, an even better movie to point at when it comes to traditional supernatural scares. Especially where low-budget Tubi films are concerned.

Directors Carter Folkes and Sean McGarry were clearly not comfortable with Destroy This Tape being a simple found-footage horror movie. They have gone to great trouble to make sure that the hand-held shaky cam element of their film is not the be-all-end-all. In fact, the found-footage element here is, perhaps, only a third of the movie’s length. It is there purely to reflect the events that took place that night the group of friends went missing.

The final two thirds are a traditional horror investigation movie featuring a fairly arrogant and unlikable protagonist pursuing a lead. Naturally, this pivot creates a whole array of problems but I will get into that in just a second. First off, we should talk about those aforementioned shaky camera sections because they are a little bit different from what you might expect.

144p of Terror

Nowadays, most people carry a phone with them everywhere that is perfectly capable of capturing glorious HD video footage. Video footage, in fact, that would put expensive cameras from the 90s to shame. It’s just too easy to produce found-footage horror in the 2020s. Even a Go-Pro would suffice with some creative editing.

Folkes and McGarry were obviously wanting to separate the aesthetics of Destroy This Tape from other similar movies. They did this in a manner that some people are going to absolutely adore and others are going to completely hate.

Instead of using a high end camera, the group of friends are recording their weekend of partying on a potato. A potato that makes the Sony Handycam Hi8 camcorders used in The Blair Witch Project look like a Christopher Nolan IMAX shoot. The footage here is horrifyingly ugly. It reminds me of the videos you would see on old flip phones with terrible screens.

Look, I get it, video cameras weren’t particularly affordable in the 2000s, but man is this film tough to watch! Some people are going to like it. It almost has an analogue horror vibe that’s very “in” at the moment thanks to films like Skinamarink. Others, however, will find it a step back from even the oldest found-footage horror movies.

As far as this whole section of the movie goes, it’s very reminiscent of the aforementioned Blair Witch. It’s a mix of young adults hanging out together, drinking, running through the woods, and gasp-crying. I didn’t find it all that scary and I wouldn’t say it’s particularly interesting, either. Still, it works and I’ll give the guys credit for trying to make it feel authentic to the time period.

I think if the whole movie was like this, it would have given a lot of genre fans the warm-and-cosies from the found-footage in the woods vibes. It feels like it would scratch a very particular itch in people who miss that type of movie.

From Shaky Cam to Shaky Plot

Unfortunately, Destroy This Tape doesn’t keep up the, at the very least, creative found-footage stuff. That was merely foreplay for the extremely soggy and disappointing main-event. We are soon introduced to the movie’s actual protagonist (I guess??) Jacob Peterson (Matt Hall). He’s a true-crime writer who seems to be down on his luck. Solving this case and using it as the story for his next book could be the breakthrough he has been waiting for.

Jacob sets about following a few leads to see whether he can uncover the secret behind the mystery. The film suddenly transforms into something of a thriller movie far more concerned with investigation shenanigans than scaring the viewer. Needless to say, everything from here on out is filmed very traditionally. It feels entirely different from what came before and it’s going to piss some people off.

I think a lot of horror fans have a higher tolerance for flawed found-footage than they do for regular films. This means they will give a found-footage horror a bit more leeway. As soon as this movie rips off its mask to reveal that it is actually a dastardly regular horror film, some people are going to feel hugely rug-pulled.

I can already imagine the found-footage Reddit community pulling out their hair over it. The thing is, it feels a bit deceptive in execution. The trailer presents the movie as purely found-footage horror and, no doubt, that is what people will be going in expecting. They are almost sure to be disappointed when the movie switches up out of nowhere.

Should Have Stayed in the Woods

I get it, the directors wanted to mix things up a bit, but it really doesn’t work. Whereas the found-footage elements offered something of substance to a specific type of horror fan, the rest of the movie offers very little. It’s just very formulaic.

It’s not even as if you can root for the protagonist. Jacob is, frankly, an utter prick, and not in the Shawn Ruddy from Deadstream way… In the way that has you rooting for his untimely demise. It’s very hard to invest in him as a lead.

Along with that comes some lousy scripting, a vanilla ending, some underwhelming editing, and an unsatisfying twist that’s far more “oh” than “wow”. I did chuckle occasionally but I generally felt myself mentally drifting away rather than fully engaged in the plot.

I really feel like Destroy This Tape had some serious potential had they just decided to stick with the found-footage. Tell the entire story, including the twist at the end, but exclude the prick of an author and stick to the disappearance.

I can imagine a lot of the found-footage community, at least, enjoying it as something of an ode to the early days of the genre. You may even have attracted some of the analogue-horror crowd, too. The video imperfections and wonky camerawork in the early scenes are exactly what those fans look for and it works quite well. I can imagine it took a lot of effort to get it right.

At the very least, I would have been upping the score here and saying “you probably aren’t going to see too many other horror movies like Destroy This Tape this year”. Instead, I am lamenting the tonal switch and regretful pivot that turns it from daring and different to overly cautious and rote.

Our Scoring Philosophy: A Fair Fight

Horror is a genre that thrives thanks to indie film makers and low budget creators. At Knockout Horror, we firmly believe that every movie that we review deserves a fair fight. That's why we grade on a curve. Our star ratings are all about context, judging a film on what it achieves with the resources it has.

A 4-star rating for a scrappy indie horror made for $10,000 is a testament to its ingenuity and raw power. A 4-star rating for a $100 million blockbuster means it delivered on its epic promises. We don't compare them side-by-side; we celebrate success in every weight class, from the back-alley brawler to the heavyweight champion. Please keep this in mind when considering star ratings.

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