Rerun THE LAST BROADCAST

Rerun THE LAST BROADCAST

By Chris La Vigna (@Chris_LaVigna)

Filmmaker David Leigh (David Beard) is our narrator of questionable reliability in THE LAST BROADCAST...

The tropes and visual language of found footage and mockumentary films have long surpassed being seen as simple gimmicks, and have evolved into being considered their own subgenres, and rightfully so. We’ve seen countless films use the stylized look of found footage—The amateur handheld camera work, the jump cuts and naturalistic dialogue-- to effectively deliver scares. From THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and CLOVERFIELD to the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and V/H/S series, it’s come a long way. And when it comes to mockumentaries or pseudo-docs, the appeal isn’t even just limited to horror genre; two of the most beloved comedy series on TV in recent years, THE OFFICE and PARKS AND RECREATION, used the conceit of a documentary crew filming their main characters to create a sense of intimacy with their viewers.

But long before the style of this subgenre could be codified, there had to be some early adopters blazing the trail to tell their stories. Two of them were filmmakers Stefan Avalos and Lance Weiler, who gave us the all-digital video pseudo doc, THE LAST BROADCAST.

"Fact or Fiction" show hosts Steven Avkast (Stefan Avalos) and Locus Weiler (Lance Weiler) are about to find something out in those Pine Barrens, just not what they expect...

Filmed in 1997 and released in 1998, THE LAST BROADCAST presents itself as a crime documentary ostensibly filmed, edited, and narrated by a young filmmaker by the name of David Leigh (David Beard). The narrative this young documentarian presents centers around a group of men who ventured into the Pine Barrens in New Jersey, in search of the mythic “Jersey Devil.” Two of the men, Steven Avkast (Stefan Avalos) and Locus Wheeler (Lance Weiler), were the hosts of a local NJ public access show titled “Fact or Fiction,” A bizarre little show that focused on discussing the supernatural, and seems just kitschy and amateurish enough to look like it could be a show at any local public access station back in the format’s '90s heydays. They were traveling into the wilderness with the intent of doing a live broadcast of their hunt for The Jersey Devil, both on television and the internet. 

This is standard fare now, but in 1995 (the time the story is set), it was still a far out concept for a time when we were all still calling it the "World Wide Web." However, the trip wouldn’t find the crew making history by capturing footage of a famous cryptid, or even broadcasting a poorly-conceived dud on par with Geraldo Rivera’s infamous opening of Al Capone’s vault. Instead, the broadcast apparently cut out sometime in the evening, never to return. 

The next morning, Jim Suerd would emerge from the woods, the only survivor. The police investigation that immediately followed turned up two of the two dead bodies (Locus and his friend Ryan; Steven’s body was never found) and Suerd was arrested for the crime. Media frenzy surrounds the ensuing trial, which ultimately finds Jim Suerd guilty of the murders. He is sentenced to life in prison, where he later dies under mysterious circumstances. Leigh is convinced that Suerd is innocent, and states from the start that he intends to find out the truth about what happened that fateful night in the Pine Barrens.

If my recounting of the story thus far sounds like the general narrative of almost every true crime documentary you’ve watched on Netflix over the last few years, well, that right there is testament to the quality storytelling at play here. The film truly feels like the kind of seedy true crime documentary you would’ve caught on TV in the late 90s or early 2000s. Though the digital video stock the film is shot on gives it an aged and perhaps even somewhat cheesy look, the strength of the writing and acting still comes through. 

The actors here, playing a variety of talking heads including everyone from arresting officers and video restoration experts, to disgruntled public access employees and dazed neighbors, are naturalistic and convincing. Each one feels like a normal person getting interviewed by their local news affiliate, with each of them giving their own variation on the classic “He was a quiet guy, mostly kept to himself…” sound bite in regard to Suerd. The way the events unfold, and accompanying footage and newspaper clips are used to flesh it out, feels fairly authentic.

Oh Michelle...

Even when David Leigh receives a box full of lost footage from the aforementioned fatal broadcast, and vows to have an expert restore the footage in hopes of finding evidence of the killer’s identity, the story still feels as though it’s on a tightly controlled track. As Data Retrieval Expert Michelle Monarch (Michelle Pulaski) slowly goes through the damaged tape, determined to see the killer’s face, the viewer is ready for a big reveal and satisfying conclusion. And boy, do we get a conclusion…

(SPOILER ALERT FOR AN OBSCURE FILM THAT’S OLD ENOUGH TO HAVE A BEER!)

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If you’ve picked up on how much I’ve been harping on the film’s impressive ability to feel like an authentic documentary in spite of a meager budget and limited resources, it’s for a good reason: I feel the need to emphasize how well the film sells it until the last few minutes. Once Michelle is finally able to clean up the footage of Lance and his friend being attacked, her and the audience are able to make out a rage-twisted face in the final frames…the face of the documentary’s director, David Leigh.

If he has to, David will kill for the perfect shot...

The very moment this twist is revealed, the film makes a sudden and jarring shift to a third person perspective, wherein we see Leigh attack a startled Michelle, suffocating her to death and wrapping her body in the same plastic he uses to cover her face. We see him immediately pick up his video camera, and record a bit of voiceover that implies he will alter the truth again and craft the narrative to show that the footage failed to produce results (and will presumably somehow explain his data retrieval expert’s sudden disappearance). He then drives back out to the Pine Barrens, dragging the body along. The final shot of the film shows David doing multiple takes introducing a new shot of him visiting the spot where the crew’s campsite once stood, with the evidence of his latest kill laying conveniently out of frame.

This sudden changeup in style will probably be divisive to anyone who seeks this film out. Those looking for full-on immersion akin to THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (which this film understandably struggled to distinguish itself from upon release, although the similarities are superficial at best) will surely be disappointed, but those viewing it with a more easygoing attitude might appreciate the twist, and how it informs the preceding events of the film upon a second viewing; A prime example being Leigh’s cavalier characterization of the “Fact Or Fiction” hosts being respectively megalomaniacal and/or lazy. Even Jim Suerd, whose innocence he rightly proclaims, is not-so-subtly framed as an introverted buffoon who doesn’t have what it takes to commit these highly sophisticated murders—he’s not defending him, he’s mocking him. His contempt for the subjects takes on an even darker tone knowing he saw them as being lowly to the point of being worthy of an untimely death.

While not the first found footage/ “faux documentary” film to be entirely shot on video (That distinction just might go to the even more obscure 1993 found footage thriller AMERICA’S DEADLIEST HOME VIDEO, but that’s another piece for another day), THE LAST BROADCAST remains significant for its place in time as one of the proto entries in a burgeoning sub-genre that would go onto become increasingly popular in the early years of the 21^st century, and still continues to have an impact on cinematic language to this day. So if you’re feeling curious on watching what was out there before anyone had ever heard of the Blair Witch or Leslie Vernon, seek out THE LAST BROADCAST.