128. Broadcast Signal Intrusion; movie review

 

BROADCAST SIGNAL INTRUSION

Cert 15

103 mins

BBFC advice: Contains strong language, suicide

First things first. Could people really take over TV networks in order to put out their own messages?

Apparently, in the days of analogue broadcasts, not only was it possible, but it happened on several occasions..

Eerie figures would suddenly emerge during programmes while station controllers would try to work out what was going on.

I looked this up after watching Jacob Gentry's pitch-dark thriller Broadcast Signal Intrusion.

Set in 1999, it stars Harry Shum jr as James, a video archivist who chances upon disturbing images of people with Michael Myers-like masks, interrupting programmes 12 years previously.

They frazzle a mind already badly jolted by the unexplained disappearance of his wife.

James decides to investigate the programme-hacking and finds himself in myriad basements confronting weirdos.

Each one passes him a slither of information which takes him on to the next clue.

James begins as a man who seems to be afraid of his own shadow, working in a dinghy, poorly-lit office which appears to increase his paranoia.

But the more frustrated he becomes the disinterest of officials in the murderous trail he discovers, the bolder he becomes.

Gentry's strange film is dark both literally and figuratively. There are surreal moments and not everything makes sense.

But it tackles a subject which I have not seen highlighted previously on the big screen and it does maintain interest throughout.

Reasons to watch: Dark and different

Reasons to avoid: Too mysterious for its own good

Laughs: None

Jumps: None

Vomit: Yes

Nudity: None

Overall rating: 6/10

Did you know? On November 26, 1977, an audio message, purporting to come from outer space and conveyed by an individual named ‘Vrillon’ of the ‘Ashtar Galactic Command’, was broadcast during an ITN news bulletin on Southern Television in the United Kingdom. The intrusion did not entirely affect the video signal but replaced the program audio with a six-minute speech about the destiny of the human race and a disaster to affect "your world and the beings on other worlds around you". None of the individuals responsible for the intrusion have been identified

The final word. Jacob Gentry: "I call Broadcast Signal Intrusion an historical fiction of the Max Headroom incident, and other broadcast signal intrusions. I like the idea of it being slightly removed so that you're stepping inside of an imagined reality in the movie, but there's enough real life analogues that give it a sense of reality, so that you can suspend your disbelief." Eye For Film

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