Our Regularly Scheduled Program

Film: The Last Broadcast
Format: Streaming video from Amazon Prime on Fire!

The They Shoot Zombies list updated recently, which is always a several day process for me in terms of updating my spreadsheets, blog, and Letterboxd site, since I am the unofficial curator of films that were on the list and have been removed. Typically, the update involves 3-4 dozen movies, most of which will have been on the list in the past with a few new additions. This year was a wholesale change, with 172 changes. Of those, 84 were returns and 88 are new to the list. It was a needed overhaul, though, because the list has been light on modern films, and the update is mainly films from the last 10 years. There are some exceptions, though, including The Last Broadcast, a found footage film that predates The Blair Witch Project by a year.

It's important that The Last Broadcast came first, because it explains the main issue with the film. Blair Witch established a lot of the rules of found footage despite there having been a number of films in the style before that. So, when I say that The Last Broadcast breaks the rules of the style, it’s only fair to point out that those rules weren’t really set in stone until the following year—it’s a sort of ex post facto complaint on my end.

The Last Broadcast is a masterclass in economic filmmaking. The film is the first feature-length movie filmed and edited on consumer-grade equipment, and the whole thing had a udget of $900, about two-thirds of which was for production and one-third for film stock. Honestly, that’s pretty impressive, and while the film isn’t one that is likely to be anyone’s favorite film of all time, it’s pretty effective for the money put into it.

The Last Broadcast is a pseudo-documentary that discusses the murder of a film crew making a cable television show. The filmmakers here decided to keep things as real as possible by giving everyone involved a character name that is very close to their actual name. So, our documentary is hosted by David Leigh (David Beard). The “Fact or Fiction” murders he is investigating involve the disappearance of Steven Avkast (Stefan Avalos) and the grisly murders of Locus Wheeler (Lance Weiler) and Rein Clackin (Rein Clabbers). Avkast and Wheeler were the hosts of a local television program while Clackin was their sound man. The man convicted of their deaths is self-proclaimed psychic James Suerd (James Seward).

The crew of the show, along with Suerd, were investigating the Pine Barrens in New Jersey on a hunt for the Jersey Devil. Avkast vanishes while Wheeler and Clackin are discovered murdered. Only Suerd left the woods alive, and he was quickly convicted of their murders despite some evidence that he could not be responsible for their deaths. It becomes moot when he dies in prison. This seems like the story that needs to be told until Leigh receives a box containing a damaged video tape. He takes this to Shelly Monarch (Michele Pulaski) to see of the tape contains any footage of what really happened in the woods that night.

Honestly, the story is a compelling one almost in spite of itself and the bland, deadpan delivery of Mike Beard as documentarian Mike Leigh. There are times when it seems like he can barely keep his own eyes open as he talks about the strange aspects of the case. It’s when the garbled video tape is finally deciphered that the film takes a hard left turn from weird mystery into actual horror.

The problem is, as mentioned above, that what happens after the reveal moment is very clearly not found footage. It’s filmed on the cheap, but it’s also clearly filmed from a third-person perspective, and looks in that respect like a traditional film. It breaks the spell of documentary and videotaped moments, and it does damage the film somewhat. I have to ask myself, though, if this is something that I would have noticed if I had seen the film in 1998. I may well have noticed it, but it seems a lot less likely that I would have found it so jarring.

I can’t say that I loved The Last Broadcast, but I didn’t hate it. It’s not one I am likely to watch again, but it’s also one that I would happily recommend to anyone who likes found footage films. It’s impressive what can be done for $900, and it’s evidence of some smart filmmakers. I just wish it had come out a couple of years later and they had figured out a way to keep the whole thing found footage rather than leaving the style when it was convenient or easier to do something else.

Why to watch The Last Broadcast: The shock moment is a hell of a shock.
Why not to watch: That shock moment breaks the rules of found footage in serious ways.