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Post by tav7623 on Sept 15, 2010 16:55:49 GMT -5
Hey everyone tav here with a new movie review, this weeks review is of the 1998 Pseudo documentary/Found Footage movie The Last Broadcast which was released a year before The Blair Witch Project appeared on the scene with a similar concept involving people going out in the woods trying to find a supernatural being and ending up having something horrible happening to them. In the case of The Last Broadcast the main characters are the hosts of a New Jersey public access show called Fact or Fiction which has been falling behind in the rating, so to boost ratings they opt to do a live TV/Radio/Internet simulcast from the New Jersey Pine Barrens as they go out in search for the Jersey Devil. Most of the film is narrated by a documentary film maker who is investigating the events leading up to and following Fact or Fiction's last broadcast from the Pine Barrens........
Pros: unlike the Blair Witch Project most of the footage is steady and not shaky (though there is the occasional shaky footage), decent editing, and is some what unconventional because the movie switches from a Documentary to a Narrative movie in the last third and is handle better than expected due to the Documentary's filmmaker also being the narrator of the documentary
Cons: Bad Acting though considering the actors are not professional actors I will cut them some slack, ugly video look and feel, gets a little repetitive near the mid point before veering off from a documentary film into a narrative movie
I give the Last Broadcast a 5 out of 10 for being one of the bold and under appreciated precursors to The Blair Witch Project and the phenomenon it created (if I remember correctly the very first film like The Last Broadcast was Cannibal Holocaust which was released in 1980 by Italian Producer Franco Palaggi) and for marking the beginning of an era in which an average Joe with a video camera and a good computer could make a feature length movie (which is what these guys did.....they shot most of the stuff on a video camera uploaded the video onto a computer edited it, recorded their own music, created all the effects that made the actors look dead, and the title cards all on a PC). Which is also this movies greatest weakness, the actors are terrible because they've never acted before and the film looks ugly compared to their predecessors because the quality of the equipment they were using at that time has since become vastly inferior to what is currently available........I would recommend this movie if you are a fan of the found footage fad or if you are a film historian who is interested in viewing one of the earlier films that helped set the stage for the Blair Witch Project.
I hope you enjoyed the review and as always please feel free to leave a comment or criticism of my review below. I will be back next week with a new movie review (hopefully) of the 2008 movie I Sell the Dead
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Post by EvilWigwam on Sept 16, 2010 13:29:18 GMT -5
Sweet review my friend. I do like that 'found footage' kind of movie. As you know, I did like Paranormal Activity, and I watched Quarantine last week (which was a bad ass movie) I've heard a shitload about Cannibal Holocaust but haven't seen it yet. Another found footage film I watched and half-ass enjoyed was a about an exorcism. I think it was called Chronicles of an Exorcism. I know you don't dig the exorcism movies, but still it was a found footage movie that wasn't too bad. It be cool to see a vampire found footage movie too. I'm sure there are some, but none comes to mind.
Anyway, cool review as always, I have heard of I Sell the Dead and I almost DVR-ed it but I'll hold up on it and see if it's worth a watch after you see it. It's an older film, yes?
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Post by tav7623 on Sept 16, 2010 15:18:06 GMT -5
thanks, there currently are not any vampire found footage movies but there has been talk of one possibly being made in the near future about a team of documentary filmmakers following a supposed vampire slayer, I Sell the Dead is 2 years old and there is going to be another movie with the same subject matter coming out next year called Burke and Hare which will be directed by John Landis will star Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis (The Cottage/King Kong/ Lord of the Rings trilogy), Tim Curry, and Ilsa Fisher (the crazy redhead from Wedding Crashers that has it in for Vince Vaughn's character) and it is suppose to be a horror comedy/ Black Comedy about the real life Burke and Hare/ West Port murders that happened in Edinburgh, Scotland during the late 1820's.
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Post by EvilWigwam on Sept 20, 2010 13:19:17 GMT -5
Again, love John Landis! ANd Tim Curry is cool as hell too. Sounds like a good cast. I saw the trailer to LET ME IN the other day, idk, not impressed. There's no way it's gonna measure up to the original. Part of the appeal, at least for me, was the location. All that snow, the different looking buildings, no way it can be done that way here. Not only that, but when we try to remake the foreign movies, we mostly fuck it up.
I did watch a werewolf movie on friday, I saw American Werewolf in Paris, and I gotta say, not impressed. It had some funny shit in it, but idk, not near what the first one was. Not even close. I'll hit netflix tomorrow or maybe tonight after the game and give that Dr. Calagri movie a shot. Usually after 3 days of football, I'm ready to return to the land of horror. By the way, ever listen to any shit by Mike Bennett? I got his Hall of Mirrors on itunes, pretty cool shit. I may grab his One Among the Sleeping after I finish up Mirrors.
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Post by tav7623 on Sept 20, 2010 16:53:29 GMT -5
I'm not either though I am curious if they are going the straight up shot for shot remake (ala Psycho) route or if they are going to include some stuff from the book....one thing I know is that based on the trailers they have removed the ambiguity of Eli's sex (in the book and the foreign version it is hinted but not stated that Eli may in fact be a boy, and not a girl ), yeah I know what you mean though there is one other foreign movie that is being remade this year in America and I hope it doesn't get fucked up either (I am referring to the remake of deceased Swedish author Stieg Larsson's thriller The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo)...yeah American Werewolf in Paris kinda sucked and definitely doesn't live up to what American Werewolf in London did, no I haven't heard any of Mike Bennett's stuff, when it comes to podcasts I usually don't listen to audio bookesque/dramatic voice acting/radio podcasts and I tend to stick more to the discussion based podcasts such as The Midnight Horror Show, Dread Central's Dinner for Fiends, Bloody Disgusting's Dead Pixel and Double Murder podcasts, Dead Lantern.com's Splattercast (the most politically incorrect horror podcast out there with one of the most disturbingly funny/disgusting and in my opinion occasionally infuriating hosts DeeJay who will say some really out there shit such as his opinions about anal leakage, his attending a gay Halloween party/parade with some friends because one of said friends told him that apparently gay people really know how to throw a great costume party, and his hatred of foreign films which boils down to he doesn't like them because they have subtitles which he hates to read and will only watch a foreign film if it is dubbed in English....just to name a few) and occasionally I will listen to both the Horror Etc. podcast (an intellectual Canadian based horror podcast......which is also somewhat infuriating and boring to listen too especially when they start talking about ghosts (one of the hosts is an atheist and doesn't believe in ghosts while the other host does believe in ghosts and they had a whole episode in which the atheist host goes about trying to debunk thr real life ghost stories/ hauntings that the other host presents to him) , attempting to do audio commentaries (which just plain suck), and the difference between U.S. and Canadian horror films.......the good episodes are the ones where they cover an entire series of movies or the movies of a certain director such as Wes Craven and John Carpenter) and the Zombie Grrlz podcast (it's mostly an all female horror podcast which discusses primarily horror movies but will occasionally delve into video games and some episodes are really good while others get too girly and overly giggly that I just can't stand it any more and have to turn it off)
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Post by EvilWigwam on Sept 23, 2010 14:07:35 GMT -5
I'm kinda the opposite when it comes to podcasts. I like the audio books 'cause I can do other shit and still read(or hear rather) a book. When it comes to discussion podcasts, I tend to lean more to sports shit. I listen to PTI, The Dan LeBatard show, and sometimes Mike and Mike. I tried some other horror podcasts (discussion ones) but couldn't really get into it. TMHS was the one that stuck. I may give the ones you mentioned a listen, always cool to hear new shit. Anal leakage?? LOL!! That's funny!! Maybe I'll start with that one.
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Post by SmokeTNT on Sept 29, 2010 13:30:04 GMT -5
I generally love found footage films since TBWP and I sought this one out years ago after hearing TBWP may have ripped it off. It was a decent flick I thought, and if I had seen it before Blair Witch, I probably would have enjoyed it more. One thing I didn't like was....
*Kinda Spoiler*
towards the end it shifts from found footage to standard movie style. That completely took me out of it and diminished the impact of the style. I suppose it was because the found footage style wasn't really being used as much then and the filmmakers thought that sticking to it for an ending could confuse viewers so they backed out.
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Post by tav7623 on Sept 30, 2010 16:51:49 GMT -5
well that's understandable because it is confusing to suddenly switch directions after passing the mid point and I've seen a lot of people get pissed off when a film does that. Though as far as I'm concerned in the case of found footage films it's not such a bad thing considering that prior to The Last Broadcast there had only been two feature length found footage films they being Cannibal Holocaust (1980) and Man Bites Dog (1992) also prior to Cannibal Holocaust the closest thing to a found footage movie was a horror docudrama called The Legend of Boggy Creek (1973) which mixed interviews and reenactments of the interviewees encounter with the "Fouke Monster" a Sasquatch like creature living in the swamps near Fouke, Arkansas. Also just thought I'd ask based on your comment about liking found footage films have you checked out the Dead Lantern Splattercast episode on Found Footage Films which I believe was episode 192 if you haven't then definitely check it out because they say some interesting things about found footage films after they talk about The Last Exorcism.
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