Before I begin, I just want to thanks Bill from Outside The Cinema for bringing this movie to my attention. He did a list on his show a few weeks back of movies that are similar to "The Blair Witch Project". Knowing I was going to do this blog-a-thon, I took notes and realized I never heard of "The Last Broadcast". So I just wanted to give him credit for putting this movie in my life.
With that said...
"The Last Broadcast" is less "Blair Witch" and more kinda like "The Poughkeepsie Tapes". The big hullabaloo (like that?) is that "Poughkeepsie" wasn't around yet. But truth be told..."Blair Witch" wasn't around yet! LE GASP! ANOTHER movie about a group of people going into the woods and something spooky happens to them while capturing it on video? WOW!
The story is this. There's a public access TV show called "Fact or
Yeah, that's super fucking uncanny, it's weird.
Anyway, while I try to push that off to the side, Mark and Seb-er, Locus host this show that talks about the paranormal and stuff like that. The film is from 1998 but the story starts off in 1995, which means not that long prior this fancy new thing called THE INTERNET was unveiled. So using THE INTERNET, the hosts ask their audience for suggestions on future shows and they get asked to look for The Jersey Devil. If you're not familiar with that story, click here. It's too long to explain here. Or watch "The X-Files" episode about it.
So our hosts take that idea and run with it. They get a small crew together and just for laughs they bring along a guy who says he's psychic and his name is James. James acts weird throughout the entire ordeal, having a troubled past and being a reclusive. And look at that, he LOVES this INTERNET thing!
The story jumps ahead a bit as we learn Mark, Locus, and this other guy named Rein all were murdered out in the forest. Only James came back alive. Soon, a huge mount of evidence stacks up against James proving he murdered them and is sentenced to life in prison. This brings us to the "present" (RE: 1997) where a film maker named David is making a documentary about the murders and James.
So at times it does the whole thing of talking to random dudes who "knew" the victims, James' doctor, and other people that just say stuff. During all this, we see pieces of footage from that night in the woods and Locus changes a tape in the camera, but the new tape...is never found! UNTIL NOW!!!! OH NOES!!!!!1
It's played up all mysteriously, that this tape appeared on David's front porch one day in 1997 but the tape was damaged, so he and some chick named Michelle have to piece it all together to figure out what happened. They show parts of it and of course they want to "be real" and have the footage messed up so the sound goes in and out and the picture is distorted.
The footage shows Locus and Rein roaming around looking for Mark. They find a shitload of blood and soon someone behind them murders them. But the tape is too messed up to clearly make out who it is. WHO DID IT?! Was it James?! Mark?! The Jersey Devil! If you DON'T WANT TO KNOW, SKIP THE NEXT PARAGRAPH AND GO TO THE END PLEASE AND THANK YOU!
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Just in case...
Ok. So in the weirdest twist I've ever seen in a movie, the killer ends up being David, the film maker. Why? How? None of this is really explained. I'm going to assume it's symbolic of how the media wants to make a story so in order to do so, the media goes and kills people their own self or some shit. I dunno, it really wasn't explained. It left me royally confused. I am a bit pissed off about this ended cause I was invested in this movie and now it feels like it ruined it for me. I mean...that's it? It couldn't have just been a ghost or the actual Jersey Devil? It's kind of a let down. I guess this is why this movie didn't get as popular as "Blair Witch".
SPOILERS OVER.
Yes, the first part of the movie is interesting, then it gets creepy, then it will let you down. In terms of found footage movies, there are now way better ones to choose from, so maybe just avoid this one at all costs. Ok, if I changed your mind about wanting to see this movie, go ahead and read the spoiler. Yeah, stupid isn't it?
-Jason
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