THE MCPHERSON TAPE
Dir. Dean Alioto, 1989
USA, 66 min
In English

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 12 – 5 PM
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22 – 10 PM

THE MCPHERSON TAPE (or UFO ABDUCTION) is a portrait of the middle class American family. The family who’s internal history of micro-aggressions, resentment, grief, and love(?) can erupt into cacophonous bursts of frantic irrational arguing. A family that can also sit around the kitchen table playing Go Fish while being terrorized by the world around them, convincing themselves that just taking their minds off the impending doom will make it go away. A family too inadequate to deal with their own interpersonal problems, let alone aliens.

The family is the Van Heeses, who have convened to celebrate the 5th birthday of the clan’s youngest, Michelle. The night’s events are being documented by Michael, the meekest of three brothers, on his newly acquired video camera much to the annoyance of his family. After turning the lights out to sing Happy Birthday and Michelle blowing out the candles on her cake, the lights don’t come back on. As they scramble to figure out the problem they find they are not alone, and thus begins a deadly encounter with an unknown force.

Often lauded as the first found footage film—that depending on your feelings towards CANNIBAL HOLCAUST, COMING APART, or THE CONNECTION—the home video camera adds to the realism, but it’s the family acting as irrationally as my own on Thanksgiving that really drives it home. We could play UNO through anything.