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The Last Broadcast (1998)
Topic Started: Oct 28 2015, 10:02 AM (76 Views)
Kevin R.
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Jersey boy for life!
The Last Broadcast (1998)

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Bristling with equipment, two enthusiastic local access cable TV producers recruit a pair of assistants and venture into a forest in search of the mythical and horrifying Jersey Devil. Days later, only one of the four emerges. He becomes the prime suspect in the disappearances of the other three. However, a local filmmaker examines extensive footage found at the scene and arrives at a different conclusion.
This is a film that only really comes up nowadays as a predecessor to The Blair Witch Project, which some people have called a ripoff of this. I disagree; I think there's enough difference between the two to argue otherwise, to say nothing of both films having been made around the same time.

Overall, I found this to be an excellent case of "great idea, shame about the execution". I liked the mockumentary style (it has more in common with shows like Unsolved Mysteries than anything) and some of the ideas it raises about how documentaries inherently lie to people, and the production values were far better than one would expect for a film made for less than a thousand dollars. Unfortunately, it simply failed on a writing level. The characters weren't really that interesting, the foreshadowing built up to nothing, and the twist came out of nowhere and created a number of plot holes. Looking back on it, it's little more than a curiosity for fans of found footage.

My full review is here.
Edited by Kevin R., Oct 28 2015, 10:29 AM.
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Kevin R.
Oct 28 2015, 10:02 AM
This is a film that only really comes up nowadays as a predecessor to The Blair Witch Project,
There's also Cannibal Holocaust, which created found footage.

This always looked dodgy to me, though "lame characters" are par for the course with found footage. I mean, the ones in Blair Witch are utter atrocities (to say the least)
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Kevin R.
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Every found footage movie ripped off Cannibal Holocaust to some extent. (And I actually liked some of them!) That movie IMO was also a lot smarter than most of the movies that followed it, but that's neither here nor there.

As for this one, it's not so much that it has annoying characters so much as it has barely any characters at all. That (along with plot holes) was a big part of the reason why the twist at the end of this film packed so little punch for me.
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I wasn't really saying they ripped it off, like how I wouldn't say zombie movies ripped off Night of the Living Dead. I more meant Last Broadcasts and Blair Witch were probably both influenced by that primarily. That said, based on years, this DEFINITELY inspired Blair Witch too (came out a year later and had a very short shooting schedule. These weren't being shot at the same time)

Well, barely any character is also par for the course with found footage. How developed are Blair Witch's, really? I mean, they constantly bicker and act obnoxious, but there's not really much there to them. Found footage tends to make characters as anonymous as possible so the audiences can transfer onto them like with Bella Swan in Twilight; that's kinda always been one of my issues with the way this genre is handled
Plot holes would definitely be an issue though.
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