While
the use of cinema verité to simulate the idea of faux documentary footage of
real events has been employed in cinema for years, including but not limited to
Ruggero Deodato’s infamous Cannibal Holocaust, the technique up to that
point was rarely used for the duration of an entire feature. In 1989 however, that changed with the underground
tape release of what became known among ufologists and supposed alien abductees
as The McPherson Tape.
Circulating
for a long time as UFO Abduction and shot on ¾” camcorder videotape,
this homegrown no-budget production about a family celebrating their 5-year-old
daughter’s birthday when their home is besieged by extraterrestrials who
presumably abduct the family. Opening with
a fuzzy tagline indicating what we’re about to see is genuine, the film is best
known not for technical or acting bravado but for just how many people were
fooled by this thing.
Part
haunted-house thriller, part science-fiction horror, the one-hour long The McPherson Tape seen
now is evidently a family endeavor with local neighbors cast as the aliens and
a hastily rendered alien spacecraft, revealed to be something of a treehouse in
the extras. Seen through the rough
videotaped footage, remarkably well preserved considering a warehouse fire at
the film’s original distribution company prevented the film from being seen for
years, the blurry aesthetic winds up making the whole thing feel oddly real.
Not
unlike the radio broadcast Orson Welles unleashed on the unsuspecting public
with The War of the Worlds, people believed this to be undeniable
evidence of the existence of extraterrestrials.
Funnier still, some even refused to accept
writer-director-producer-actor Dean Alioto’s own admission the whole endeavor
was a hoax.
Years
later, Dean Alioto would revisit the world of The McPherson Tape again
in the form of a souped up big budgeted remake named Alien Abduction:
Incident in Lake County. A bit longer than the original film and aired on
the UPN Network in 1998 with faux interviews by “experts” reviewing the tape,
this new and improved The McPherson Tape caused some measure of
controversy and confusion. People
couldn’t identify which film came first, which was “real” and which one was
“fake” due to the lack of disclaimers.
Whether
or not The McPherson Tape was the first film to jump start the found-footage
subgenre of horror or science fiction is debatable, but what’s undeniable is
that whether the film works or not is secondary to the overarching impact it
had. Somehow managing to fool many even
after the cat was let out of the bag by the filmmakers and even spawning an
expensive effects-heavy remake, the mark left by The McPherson Tape is
plain as day.
No this isn’t some hidden
gem unearthed for the first time by the American Genre Film Archive, who gave
this a loving makeover replete with the filmmakers’ involvement. But it is an important footnote in the
development of one of science-fiction horror’s most successful and prolific
subgenres.
--Andrew Kotwicki
