John Erick Dowdle's The Poughkeepsie Tapes has a complicated release history that involves being pulled for ten years due to several factors. The found footage movie follows detectives, news reports, and interviews about a notorious killer in Poughkeepsie, New York who recorded his murders on a total of 800 video tapes. Here's why the horrors filmed in The Poughkeepsie Tapes were pulled from release for ten years.
Dowdle is known for his impeccable found footage movies that include As Above, So Below and Quarantine. Before these two movies released, he created The Poughkeepsie Tapes with an anticipated release date in 2008, but the distributor quickly pulled it before major audiences could view its contents. The movie was marketed as being based on actual events when it is actually a fictionalized story that took influence from an actual string of murders that took place in Poughkeepsie, New York as well as Ted Bundy, a notorious serial killer who targeted women. As the movie switches between news reports and interviews, it inserts the snuff movies that depict horrific murders each more brutal than the last.
As found footage movies have evolved from The Blair Witch Project, they have grown increasingly more terrifying. They push the limits of reality by asserting some form of truth behind their mostly fictional horrors. The Poughkeepsie Tapes is regarded as one of the most disturbing found footage movies, which may explain its held release, but there are also several other reasons that MGM chose to wait ten years for the world to see it.
MGM was the primary distributor of The Poughkeepsie Tapes and the reason it was held from releasing for ten years. Despite this fact, it did show up sporadically across various platforms prior to an official release. It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2007, which led MGM to give it a February release the following year, but dropped it without giving a reason why. In 2014, it was briefly available to order for VOD, which is how early fans were able to see it and spread the word about the supposedly real serial killer of Poughkeepsie, New York. The Poughkeepsie Tapes never received a theatrical release and went straight to DVD in 2017 through Scream Factory rather than MGM.
In 2008, promotional materials for the movie were distributed and fans waited patiently to see what would come from The Poughkeepsie Tapes but its release never happened. Once it was available for VOD, MGM pulled the movie with the intent of having a wide theatrical release but it ended up shelved for three more years without explanation. Altogether, The Poughkeepsie Tapes spent ten years in release limbo without an actual date in sight. Some have rumored that it was held due to its graphic contents and disturbing atmosphere, referring to it as a banned movie, but this claim has never been substantiated with actual evidence. It is entirely plausible that MGM felt audiences were not ready to see such graphic contents considering the controversy of movies that utilize snuff as a form of horror, such as in Cannibal Holocaust.
There's no true explanation behind why MGM chose to shelve The Poughkeepsie Tapes. It can be assumed that it was likely held due to its violence, the inclusion of Ted Bundy, its snuff movie aspects, the prospects of upsetting the town of Poughkeepsie, New York with a fictionalized serial killer, and the unsettling atmosphere accompanied by people with physical abnormalities that served to disturb the audience. Regardless of it being held for ten years, The Poughkeepsie Tapes is now widely available and has been since 2017, thanks to Scream Factory.