NJ Star Ledger Review- THE LAST BROADCAST
RB
Aug 15th, 1999
Jersey movie more sophisticated in approach than 'Blair Witch'
The Last Broadcast
(Unrated) Starring David Beard, Jim
Seward (Wavelength Releasing)
****
By Matt Zoller seitz
NEW JERSEY STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Much has been written about the similarities between the smash hit "The
Blair Witch Project" and the lesser-known New Jersey-shot indie "The
Last Broadcast" -- and there are many. Both are horror films with a
post-modem twist -- reconstructed tales of doomed expeditions by
documentary filmmakers, presented in pseudo-documentary format, as
footage that might or might not explain how the filmmakers were killed.
Did the "Blair Witch" directors steal their idea from "Last Broadcast"
filmmakers Stefan Avalos and Lance Weller, who put up a Web site
advertising their movie months before "Blair Witch" was shot?
Watching both films doesn't answer the question, but it does render it
irrelevant. Both share a fascination with filmmaking, storytelling and
technology's impotence in the face of horror and death. But where "Blair
Witch" gets at these issues parenthetically -- in a short documentary
prelude to what amounts to a lengthy, bowel-loosening, first-person
snuff film -- "The Last Broadcast" examines them from first frame to
last, in a far more sophisticated way.
In fact, "The Last Broadcast" is so densely constructed and
intellectually assured that it makes "Blair Witch" look like a nifty
stunt and not much more. It's the difference between watching
"Halloween" and "The Shining," to name two other
classic horror movies. You don't have to be a film buff to recognize
that one effort is clearly the product of a supe-
rior intelligence.
"The Last Broadcast" is presented as a "documentary" about what happened
to the creators of a South Jersey cable access show titled "Fact or
Fiction?" when they went into the Pine Barrens in search of the Jersey
Devil. They hoped to broadcast their expedition live on cable and over
the Internet. Four people went into the woods, but only one came out
alive -- a disturbed loner named Jim Suerd (Jim Seward), who professed
to be a psychic and was fascinated with magic tricks. Suerd was found
guilty of the murders in a trial that became a media event.
But as David Leigh (David Beard), narrator and "director" of "The Last
Broadcast," reconstructs all the evidence, he becomes convinced that
the real killer not only got away, he planned the killings months ahead
of time, constructing a trap
that would be irresistible to attention-hungry cable access geeks. The
methodical pace is deliberate; it lulls the viewer into complacency and
disguises the fact that the plot is turning back on itself like a Mobius
strip.
Where "Blair Witch" created a phony documentary and called it a day,
"The Last Broadcast" creates an alternate universe in mind-boggling
detail. Avalos (who plays the cable access show's egotistical host) and
Weiler have constructed their feature·
in the style of a tabloid TV segment. There are flash cuts of decaying
corpses, spooky freeze frames of home video footage, 911 tapes played
over images of slowly turning tape recorder reels, on-camera "witnesses"
with official-sounding job titles like "video editor for the
prosecution."
Every mug shot and police report, every newspaper and Internet story,
every editing room log sheet and chat room printout, is a meticulous
fake. They all ring true, reinforcing the ideas that you're watching a
movie about something that Really Happened.
The cable access show's title "Fact or Fiction?" -- is no accident. This
movie's true subject isn't murder but how the media can distort the
truth, and how science, from DNA tests to surveillance footage, cannot
be trusted. The concepts of filmmak·
ing as magic, TV as spectacle and the truth as an agreed-upon lie are
embedded in every flickering pixel of "The Last Broadcast," a film of
modest means and startling ambition.
The VHS videocasette of "The Last Broadcast" will be available for
sale Aug. 24 through online book dealer Amazon.com.
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