Review: Man Finds Tape (2025) — Liminal chills that build… then flatline

Peter Hall and Paul Gandersman’s Man Finds Tape revives found footage horror through a modern, multimedia nightmare.

Directors: Peter S. Hall, Paul Gandersman

Cast: Kelsey Pribilski, William Magnuson, John Gholson, Graham Skipper, Nell Kessler, Brian Villalobos

Release: Select theaters & Digital Dec. 5, 2025 (Magnet)

We’re deep in the era of liminal dread—where YouTube rabbit holes, surveillance clips, and analog grime blur into “is-it-real?” storytelling. Man Finds Tape embraces that ecosystem. Lucas Page (William Magnuson) runs a viral channel built on unsettling home videos; when he shares apparent murder footage with his sister Lynn (Kelsey Pribilski), the pair follow a thread that knots together small-town secrets, a local reverend (John Gholson), and a decades-old supernatural stain.

This isn’t strictly found footage. It’s a multimedia mock-doc—interviews, CCTV, Ring cams, YouTube edits, handhelds, and conventional narrative photography stitched into a single feed. The format matches our fractured attention spans and, for a while, it works—especially as the story leans into religious panic and regional folklore.

The film’s world-building through a media collage sells the idea of a community haunted from multiple angles. Pribilski makes Lynn’s skepticism feel grounded, while Gholson’s Reverend Endicott Carr is the film’s standout—a zealot you can’t quite pin, equal parts shepherd and wolf. Graham Skipper’s appearance adds texture without winking, a welcome surprise in a film that otherwise risks being swallowed by its own gimmick.

Early on, the film promises a bigger design than another “tapes lead to a monster” riff, but the story gradually loses steam. The mystery builds beautifully, only to plateau as revelations arrive that feel smaller than the questions posed. For all its technical polish and narrative ambition, Man Finds Tape becomes too familiar—a collage of REC, Paranormal Activity, and YouTube horror culture that ends up saying less than it shows.

Editing keeps the first hour crisp, and the sound design does heavy lifting in the quieter, liminal moments. The mythology gestures toward something vast—cult currents, civic rot—but the final act tidies what should have remained terrifying.

Ultimately, Man Finds Tape is good until it isn’t: a strong hook, a capable cast, and a savvy formal approach that never quite lands the emotional or thematic punch it promises. Fans of mockumentary-meets-ARG storytelling will find moments to savor, but the aftertaste is “seen this,” not “show me more.”

Man Finds Tape opens in select theaters and on digital December 5, 2025, via Magnet (with XYZ Films attached). Written and directed by Peter S. Hall and Paul Gandersman. Produced by David Lawson Jr., Aaron Moorhead, Justin Benson, and Ashley Landavazo.

Final rating: 2.5/5 — The format is fluent, the cast committed, but the film’s chilling promise fades into repetition before it can find its own legacy.