Review of Last Broadcast, The

Introduction

Before we all heard nothing but Blair Witch this and that, there was a documentary based film which claimed to look behind a set of murders. When the team of a low budget cable access show attempt a live broadcast in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey where the legendary Jersey Devil lives, all are reported missing presumed dead, bar one, who was later convicted of their murder. Ooer misses.

The cover says, "Incredibly Creepy. Don`t see it alone." So its like 1am in the morning and the world is as quite and creepy as it gets, oh and I`m alone. In goes the DVD, the real question is is it scary?

Video

Yes its all documentary footage shot on digital camera technology back when it was new. In the extras they talk about how they only showed this in theatres on Digital Projectors because they wanted to preserve its look as much as possible. Although I did actually watch this on a Digital Projector myself, trust me when I say this will look just as good on your analog TV set.

Audio

See video. Well okay, I ought to jot down a bit more than that but basically we have poor quality sound as you would expect considering the fact this is supposed to be a very low budget documentary.

Features

You get two trailers, one of which is actually scarier than the film. Also there is a nice pleasant photo libary which is worth a quick flick through. Just a word of warning, don`t watch any of the extras until you have seen the film.

The featurettes are very interesting, clearly the film makers have a love for the technology they use and they transfer this enthusiasm wonderfully via the various interviews they give to the camera.

Conclusion

Whilst this has been described as the inspiration behind The Blair Witch Project, that is all it is. Where as the aforementioned film came later and shares some of the documentary style footage, there the similarity pretty much ends. Here we have a pure fake documentary complete with voice over and eary music. Actual footage from the final broadcast of the protaganists is minimal, the remainder of this docufilm consists of interviews.

The ending is a geniune case of `What the f***?` and don`t worry I am not going to spoil it for you. I`m not talking here of the ilk of the ending of Blair Witch, this is genuine tangent territory here which actually feels a complete let down.

The acting is reasonably believable, but then nobody is really doing anything too taxing and isn`t on camera enough to break the truth spell.

If you liked Blair Witch this may interest you but its a very different sort of film. As a piece of cinema it also has a lot of novelty value and will be of interest to film students. For the rest of us however, this one should probably be given a miss.