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The Last Broadcast
USA 1998
produced by Stefan Avalos, Lance Weiler for FFM Productions
directed by Stefan Avalos, Lance Weiler
starring David Beard, Jim Seward, Stefan Avalos, Lance Weiler, Rein Clabbers, Michele Pulaski, Tom Brunt, Mark Rublee, A.D. Roso, Dale Worstall, Vann K. Weller, Sam Wells, Jay MacDonald, Faith Weiler, Marianne Connor, Robert Weiler, Jennifer Nasal, Brett Nielsen, Holly Madison, Jeremy Coleman, Todd Weiler, Chadd Ritenbaugh
written by Stefan Avalos, Lance Weiler, music by Steven Avalos, A.D. Roso
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
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Four people set out to make a documentary about the Jersey Devil - but
three of them (Stefan Avalos, Lance Weiler, Rein Clabbers) are killed in
the forest they are filming at, while only one, Jim (Jim Seward), returns, and he seems to be a tailormade suspect for the murders. He is
tried and convicted, and later dies in prison under mysterious
circumstances. The case is pretty much closed, but another documentary
filmmaker, David (David Beard), has doubts about Jim's guilt and sets out
to make a documentary destined to determine what has really been going on
- and especially a video tape that has been sent to David by a person
unknown that had never been available to the police promises to uncover
the truth. Unfortunately, the tape is gravely didstorted, and thus David
hires data retrieval expert Michelle (Michele Pulaski) to clean it up
again to ultimately try and find the killer on tape - and after months of
restoration, the killer turns out to be ... David himself, who is now
quick to get rid of Michelle ... 3 people being killed in the
woods while shooting a documentary about some local legend - why
that sounds an awful lot like Blair
Witch Project - and yet The Last Broadcast was made a year
prior to that movie. But while Blair
Witch Project succeeded in doing the next to impossible - make a
stroll through the woods scary and exciting -, The Last Broadcast
takes the more traditiional route of using the mock documentary approach
as a cost-cutting measure, which includes using cheap video material for authencity
purposes, replacing the more elaborate and dramatic scenes with talking
heads merely talking about these scenes, and - thanks to the many
interview-sequences - keeping the sets to a minimum. Also, the documentary
approach is used as an excuse to not necessarily tie up all of the film's
narrative threads and not presenting the viewer with fully developed
characters. Interestingly, the film breaks away from its mock
documentary-mode in the finale (when the filmmaker himself is revealed to
be the killer) - a finale that is about as stupid as it seems rushed
though. In all, The Last Broadcast is a rather weak effort in
both the horror and the fake documentary genre, and not worth your time
and money. And by the way, there is no indication that the makers of Blair
Witch Project have even seen this film (much less used it as a
template), which makes the film not even interesting in that respect.
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