Dover Demon

***Dover Demon*** is the tenth episode and the season finale of the second season of the thriller horror docudrama found-footage television series Lost Tapes. It originally aired on Animal Planet on January 13th, 2009 and was directed by Rob Traegler.

## Plot

In Spring 2007, unemployed construction worker Chad Hurliss recruited his wife Shannah and friends Glenn Diffy and Royce Best to fake evidence of a sighting of the Dover Demon.

Chad and his companions do not actually believe that the creature exists, and instead plan to capitalize on a resurgence of the creature's popularity that coincides with the 30th anniversary of the sightings in Dover, Massachusetts. Glenn expresses concern over the hoax, as he is the only member of the group who takes the legends about the Dover Demon seriously, but Chad just berates him, saying that those who believe in the creature are the very people he plans to fool. While milling around their car, Glenn sees what appears to be a pair of glowing eyes in the brush, but when he tries to tell the others about it, Royce suddenly startles and distracts him.

When he looks back at the bushes, the eyes have disappeared. Chad retrieves a shotgun from the car, saying that it is only for "believability." It becomes dark as they hike deeper into the woods, and Glenn discovers deep scratch marks in the trees and bizarre footprints on the ground, and he becomes very worried. Chad, however, refuses to believe that the creature exists and simply says to continue filming, as the material can be used for their video. Glenn suddenly falls into a hidden pit, which only panics him further as he thinks that it was deliberately camouflaged. They finally reach a suitable spot to film a fake attack.

Royce puts on an unconvincing monster costume, which bears absolutely no resemblance to the alleged creature, while Shannah puts on makeup to look like she had been attacked. As Royce and Shannah walk off into the darkness, Glenn suggests that they use a night vision function on the camera. As the night vision is turned on, it captures the *real* Dover Demon, which vaguely resembles a gray alien on film in full view of the camera as it watches them, unseen, from a tree above them. Chad tells him to turn off the night vision though, and they begin discussing what kinds of shots they want to capture. Suddenly, they hear screeching and chattering in the forest and Shannah runs towards them screaming shortly after Chad wonders what the noise was, claiming that the demon is real. In the confusion, Chad fires the shotgun into the darkness and then claims that what Shannah saw was just Royce in the costume, but she insists that it really *was* the Dover Demon.

Chad takes the camera to use as a light, and suggests that they split up to try to find Royce, but Glenn begins yelling at him for being responsible for the danger they are in, and that splitting up is a bad idea. Nonetheless Chad insists they split up, Glenn goes off on his own, taking out a pocket knife to defend himself. Chad and Shannah hear more chattering and screeching in the forest, and they suddenly come upon Royce, who was accidentally shot by Chad earlier. He, too, insists that he has seen the demon.

They suddenly see the demon not far away, but it is obscured by the darkness. Unable to move Royce because of his injury, they leave to find something to carry him with while Royce begs Chad not to leave him, but hear Royce screaming only moments after leaving him. They return to find Royce missing, apparently taken away by the creature, and blood-soaked pieces of the monster costume scattered on the ground. As they flee in terror, Shannah trips and discovers Glenn's bloody jacket, implying the creature killed Glenn while they were looking for Royce.

They continue running, but Chad suddenly falls into another hole and breaks his leg. Shannah is about to leave to find help, but suddenly sees a mutilated animal carcass in the pit next to him, causing her to realize that the hole *is*, in fact, a trap that was laid by the Dover Demon. With Chad unable to move due to his injury, the two huddle together as Shannah turns on the camera's night vision, which captures another image of the demon approaching them from a tree branch.

Chad picks up the shotgun and fires at it, and seems to hit it, but the creature disappears a moment later. Suddenly, the demon appears in front of them and attacks and kills them. Of the four that entered the Dover Woods that April night, no one returned. The bodies of Chad, Shannah, Glenn, and Royce were never found, but blood discovered on the ground and on the tattered remains of the demon costume was identified as theirs.