I'm a sucker for cinema verite movies, so a cinema verite TV show, sign me up. A show thats both scary and entertaining.The show is about cryptics, Bigfoot, aliens, vampires, and things some people believe in, but others don't. Each episode takes place behind a camera lens shot by the main characters, much like cloverfield, blairwitch, and parnanormal activity, and I love those movies.It's a good show that will entertain and scare. I highly recommend this show. But if you get nausea from these types of films, than I would probably skip this, or don't watch on a large TV.

Cryptozoology shows all have one thing in common: they don't have results. If they did, we'd have heard about it on the news long before the show could air. Instead, we get 'the best evidence out there' in some and absolutely nothing in others. As viewers, we can't hold it too much against them, it's an integral part of any field science. Even creatures that don't suffer from the 'they probably don't exist' problem can prove elusive.I love shows like Monster Quest, Destination Truth, and Animal X. They appeal to the truly scientific side of me that hears the evidence and assigns probabilities, but there are only so many times they can scan Loch Ness. There are only so many bear footprints I can look at with the question 'was it Bigfoot'? Then, Animal Planet brought us Lost Tapes, a horror show with a cryptozoology theme.Lost Tapes is about as academic as an episode of The X-Files. Instead of creating a show to please skeptics, it's more or less straight horror. It makes no claims that anything it has are real, doesn't expect us to believe anything about it. It frees them from having to give us the most credible critters out there. In fact, it frees them from *everything*. Instead, they can just make a show, and not another one where the *same* evidence is run over again and again without any conclusion. The science only invades the show long enough to explain the plot. Lost Tapes does not appeal to the same side as MonsterQuest, it appeals to the side of me that watches horror movies.Lost Tapes suffers from a few problems. The acting isn't always great, the stock sounds can get a little tedious, the obsession with never allowing a clear shot of the monster of the day (see below) can often lead to some hilariously bad special effects. It's very, *very* clear that the show was shot without any budget to speak of.On the other hand, given what they have to work with, it's very well done. Comparing the show to the Blair Witch Project is unfair. That movie was missing the whole 'scary' part, whereas this is not (some people actually *complain* that it's too scary...). The director understands that the more time a creature spends in camera, the less threatening it is (you get a maximum of one or two fuzzy glances per show). The show also does a good job of making the characters behave realistically. The Mexicans in the Chupacabra episode speak almost exclusively Spanish, the woman coming upon the remains of the beast's last kill says 'I'm going to leave this to the authorities!'.Animal Planet would be wise to give them more money and resources to work with. It would be great if, for example, a few film crews found themselves falling victim to the nasty critters.If you're a big skeptic looking for a highly scientific show, don't bother with this one. If you're into horror, this show is for you. I advise even the most die-hard skeptics to watch it the way they watch the X-Files (I remember *it's* first season special effects as being bad too). Despite its many flaws, this show blew me away.Let's hope it's not too good to last.

This was a waste of time. As if the slew of annoying commercials every 3 minutes wasn't bad enough, the whole thing stunk to high heaven of poorly manufactured farce. Even trying to get ten lines of text to make this comment worthy of the IMDb commentary is tough. What can you say about another idiotic TV show thrust upon the viewing public? Let's see - waste of time - yep. Waste of film - yep. Bad acting - Oh yeah. It's like they rolled the dice and came up with an excuse to get more air time for commercials featuring absolutely worthless products that no one needs. Animal Planet is getting just as bad as the Discovery Channel and the History Channel when it comes to commercials. Did I mention that an over abundance of commercials sucks? Current TV industry greed is way over the line.

After all the paranormal reality shows/docudramas comes this bizarre show from Animal Planet. Despite being a mockumentary show, it is "supposedly" based off of real events. These "Lost Tapes" capture the final events of the victim and their encounter with a supposed cryptid (aka Nessie, Big Foot, Chupacabra, etc.); like we haven't seen this before. The show tries to pull ploys from Blair Witch and Cloverfield, where the victim or victims are just pretty much running with a hand held camera; running from something that's behind them. And in Blair Witch/Cloverfield fashion, the creature is barely seen; either seeing a silhouette or a body part, but not the entire creature. Since this is Animal Planet were talking about, the show mainly just deals with cryptozoological creatures rather than full paranormal phenomenons such as ghosts and UFOs. No aliens or spirits on this show. While this show is humorous in many ways (as an equivalent of a SciFi Original Movie); the show does ponder the question...WHEN THE HECK WILL WE FINALLY CAPTURES/VIDEO TAPES THESE CREATURES IN REAL LIFE? I mean, it took a while to film a giant squid in a nature habitat. Unlike with extraterrestials or the after life, at least the public has some idea that these cryptids have the "potential" to exist on Earth. Will we ever know, who knows. Overall, the series is a decent watch if you're bored; however, paranormal magazine shows like Sightings or documentaries like Monster Quest are more decent things to watch, if you're into that sort of stuff. Then again, there's always going to the library and reading about it too.