Early Found Footage Film ‘The McPherson Tape’ Remains Chillingly Effective Decades Later

The Legend of Boggy Creek. Cannibal Holocaust. Man Bites Dog. These are the usual suspects whenever someone brings up the origins of modern-day found footage. However, it was a long road full of cinematic experiments before these films would give rise to the movie that popularized the genre – The Blair Witch Project. After all, before Myrick and Sanchez’s film, most proto-found-footage productions were more interested in emulating documentaries and news footage than recreating amateur recordings that just happened to capture something creepy.

I say “most” because there is one notable exception. An infamous film so dedicated to its DIY presentation that many viewers were originally unaware that it was meant to be a film at all. Naturally, I’m referring to Dean Alioto’s iconic UFO Abduction (also known as The McPherson Tape), a misunderstood classic that I believe started all the familiar tropes of contemporary found footage over a decade before we met the Blair Witch. And with Bloody Disgusting’s own V/H/S series shining a light on extraterrestrial frights with the release of this year’s V/H/S/Beyond, today I’d like to look back on the alien abduction that started it all.

A lover of genre cinema from a young age, indie filmmaker Dean Alioto wanted to be the first director to craft the cinematic equivalent to Orson Welles’ infamous radio adaptation of War of the Worlds. Inspired by the Hopkinsville Goblins Case – which had previously influenced movies like Critters and E.T. – Alioto decided that a sci-fi horror thriller shot from the perspective of a desperate family facing otherworldly invaders could very well be his dream project.

Shot over the course of a single night on an insanely low budget of $6,500, UFO Abduction follows the Connecticut-based Van Heese family as they get together for a birthday party only to have their remote home come under siege by alien invaders. What follows is a realistic portrayal of how a regular family might react to incomprehensible terror, with the invasion ultimately culminating in a chilling close encounter.

What makes UFO Abduction unique isn’t its story, but how Alioto tells it, with the narrative starting off as a compilation of barely edited candid party footage and only gradually introducing horror elements as the family investigates strange lights in the sky – something that our cameraman realistically believes is worth recording. This may sound like a run-of-the-mill found footage project today, but the amateur set-up was revolutionary back in ’89.

While most of us take constant video recording for granted these days, it used to be that only those who could afford expensive production equipment (and precarious 8mm film cameras) were able to record non-commercial moving pictures. It was only with the rise of dedicated home video devices during the late ’70s that this would change. Not only could audiences now rewatch their favorite movies without having to wait for a theatrical rerelease that might never come, but they could also shoot their own home movies in the same manner that families engaged in amateur photography.

By 1989, however, home video had become so ubiquitous that it was only a matter of time before clever filmmakers realized that audiences no longer required studios and familiar cinematic formulas in order to appreciate a chilling story. That’s why it makes sense that Dean felt ready to ditch the conventions of both traditional film and documentary formatting when the time came to craft his faux-reality opus.

This brave new format was also much more forgiving when it came to budgetary issues, with Alioto being able to get away with little-to-no professional lighting as well as simple effects work. The aliens themselves (which barely appear in the finished film) were actually just children in rubber costumes, with the low-quality visuals making everything seem much more believable than it really was.

Personally, I feel that the movie is more effective as a simulation of alien contact (and as a time capsule of the late ’80s) than as a proper film, though its speculative elements only work because of the lack of a traditional narrative. Any additional explanations or story beats would ruin the immersion, with this precarious narrative balancing act still being one of the biggest challenges faced by modern found footage filmmakers.

Of course, UFO Abduction is much more than just a movie, and its journey towards becoming an urban legend began when the completed film’s master tape was allegedly destroyed in a warehouse fire soon after Alioto secured a distributor. While the initial plans for a wide release could have made this the original Blair Witch Project in terms of mainstream success, the tragic loss of the higher quality footage (which was actually found back in 2020) meant that the only way to watch the movie was through janky copies sold by Alioto himself.

Unbeknownst to the director, these copies were then acquired by bootleggers who removed the title screen and credits in order to distribute the film at UFO conventions as an example of real found footage. This is when UFO Abduction began to be referred to as “The McPherson Tape” despite there not being anyone by that name in the video.

To this day, there are viewers who swear that the 1989 tape is the legitimate article, with some accusing Alioto of being part of a government cover-up regarding the existence of extraterrestrials. There are even rumors about an ultra-rare 6-hour variant of the footage that supposedly shows what happens after the initial abduction. So while he didn’t get the chance to profit off of his work, Alioto arguably fulfilled his dream of recreating the 1938 War of the Worlds hysteria.

Fortunately for Alioto, this infamy would later allow him to team up with much of the same crew that created the original project in order to remake the film with a larger budget in 1998. Not only would this made-for-TV version of the story finally allow him to monetize his creation (which was now renamed to either Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County and The McPherson Tape, depending on the region), but it would also include documentary-inspired inserts where so-called “experts” comment on the footage.

The added production value made the remake much easier to follow, but I’d argue that something vital was lost in translation as the film began to look more like a scary movie than genuine “found footage.” The flick also suffered from plenty of improvised padding (with the original script only accounting for about 45 minutes of footage), though one could argue that this just makes the homemade recordings feel that much more believable. Regardless, it’s still an incredibly chilling picture, with Alioto even receiving a letter from a viewer blaming him for a miscarriage that she attributed to shock from viewing the film.

Funnily enough, the remake would spawn even more conspiracy theories as some folks insisted that it was only produced in order to further obfuscate the “genuine” footage in the original tape – all this despite Alioto having always been upfront about his cinematic intentions.

Of course, the legacy of UFO Abduction reaches far beyond the realm of Ufology, with the film having been instrumental in the development of numerous horror flicks as well as a handful of similar hoaxes like the infamous Alien Interview video. Personally, I think Alioto’s greatest achievement was in proving that – in this brave new world where everyone is familiar with the concept of home movies and recording devices are easily available – audiences care more about story and emotion than they do about production value.

That’s why I believe it can be argued that most modern found footage owes an enormous debt to this 1989 experiment. From viral internet videos (like the Mountain Devil Prank Fails Horribly video which launched Radio Silence’s career) to horror ARGs that emulate the same faux DIY approach (like the iconic Marble Hornets), it’s amazing how a 35-year-old film can still be so relevant.

So as the Found Footage genre continues to innovate by incorporating new forms of media into the filmmaking toolbelt, I think it’s worth looking back on an underappreciated classic that can still scare the hell out of you if you’re willing to engage with it on its own terms.

You can grab a copy of The McPherson Tape on Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome.