Originally broadcast on Oct. 31, 1987, the WNUF Halloween Special has to be the craziest live television program since the medium’s invention. Or rather, it would be, if only it were real.
Actually a movie made to resemble — really resemble — a local newscast of the chroma key-happy era, WNUF is a damned fine hoax. Masterminded by writer/director/producer Chris LaMartina (Call Girl of Cthulhu), the show parodies and draws obvious influence from Geraldo Rivera’s infamous satanic-panic “exposé” of ’88. Here, mustachioed TV 28 reporter Frank Stewart (a thoroughly winning Paul Fahrenkopf, President’s Day) is on assignment at the Webber House, boarded up for 20 years after its owners were murdered by their Ouija-using son, whose evil spirit is said to haunt the abandoned home ever since.
Following WNUF’s nightly newscast — complete with seasonal stories from a cop providing trick-or-treat safety tips to a dentist paying kids to relinquish their loot for cash — the dogged Frank explores the Webber House with the assistance of the Bergers, a paranormal-investigating couple (played by Brian St. August and Helenmary Bell), who are to conduct a live, call-in séance. The Bergers clearly are spoofs of Ed and Lorraine Warren, the controversial duo involved in the real-life Amityville Horror and more recently immortalized and fictionalized in 2013’s The Conjuring.
As satisfying as the story of Frank’s on-the-spot reporting is, the reason WNUF stands out as a unique viewing experience is the lengths to which LaMartina and his co-conspirators go to make their Halloween Special meet its conceit of being a time-capsule relic. Sporting no credits, the program begins as an old VHS tape would: the word “PLAY” appearing in the corner of a bright-blue screen and an image whose quality has degenerated with each viewing and the passing of the years. And boy, do the commercials sell it; the local-looking ads are so well-done — which is to say they are hokey and no-budget — that one would be right at home wedged within breaks of any given syndicated sitcom rerun.
These words from our sponsors include several Halloween-themed spots (“With prices so low, you’ll think we’re out of our gourds!”), plus PSAs, political-attack ads and 30-second pitches for ambulance-chasing attorneys, public events, a 1-900 line, a computer store — even tampons! The ones advertising TV 28’s other programs — from the mummy-shuffling-amok movie Sarcophagus to some sci-fi series titled Galaxy Pilot and the Lazer Brigade — ring particularly choice. To further pull that proverbial wool, some ads get repeated, only to be fast-forwarded through by whomever is controlling the signal.
I’d be curious to watch the WNUF Halloween Special with unsuspecting friends, to see how long it would take before they got the joke, assuming they would. LaMartina and friends have achieved perfection in imperfection, making the Special truly that — a cult classic worthy of annual viewing. —Rod Lott