Review: The Last Broadcast (1998)

Directed by: Stefan Avalos, Lance Weiler
Starring: Stefan Avalos, Lance Weiler, David Beard
Written by: Stefan Avalos, Lance Weiler
Music by: Stefan Avalos, A.D. Roso
IMDb

The Last Broadcast was one of the earliest found footage flicks of the modern era, released just before The Blair Witch Project upended the horror genre (although Blair Witch was already in development prior to the release of this film). The Last Broadcast follows an investigation into the murders of a filmmaking crew that was in search of the Jersey Devil in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. It’s fairly obvious why this movie didn’t have the impact of Blair Witch: It’s just not very interesting or particularly well made. The framing is relatively intriguing but the storytelling misses so many opportunities — the primary being a chance to examine whether the presumed human-committed murders were actually the work of the Jersey Devil. While the movie toys with that idea for like 5 minutes near the end, what could have been a creepy supernatural movie ends up mostly as a boring police procedural, like a dull episode of Unsolved Mysteries. Mediocre acting sinks a mystery that already isn’t very provocative. In lieu of a cryptid, the film settles on a twist that is poorly executed. Once the reveal occurs, the audience is thrown from the found footage framing — which was obviously used in part to mask a lack of technical skill — and forced to endure a traditionally filmed climax that feels straight out of the SOV boom. This isn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but fails to be compelling in any way.

Rating: 3 out of 10