I’ve always found the criminal hijacking of television stations intriguing, usually from a scarier frame of mind than most people. To the creators, it’s a fractured art project; to me, it’s the knob-turning product of manipulative fear I find myself watching in the dark over and over again when I really shouldn’t.
Disagree with me if you must, but I think director Jacob Gentry and writers Phil Drinkwater and Tim Woodall seem to agree with me, as their flick, Broadcast Signal Intrusion, repeatedly hits every play button of unrealized fear that I’ve never been able to fully express to anyone else.
Hearkening back to the signal disruptions of years past such as the Max Headroom incident or the “I Feel Fantastic” video, here we find video archiver James (Harry Shum Jr.) as he’s found a few old broadcast interruptions of a mannequin in a strange room chanting something over and over again, played to great effect; disturbed, he ends up going down one rabbit-eared hole after another to find the smallest shred of truth behind it.
Pretty soon, creepy acolytes, disturbed video enthusiasts and the suicidal followers of these urban legends come out of the VHS woodwork under the guise of helping him out, but mostly end up terrorizing him. As this obsession stretches into his past and his long-lost wife, he appears to head this manic direction as well.
Whereas Broadcast Signal Intrusion seems to be desperately reaching for a finale that might — while not explaining everything — go for an incredibly outlandish ending that a bizarre film like this truly deserves. Sadly, it peters out in the most deflating way possible, leading me to want to spend my life feverishly hunting for the original ending.
But that’s crazy because that’s the original ending … I mean, it has to be, right? —Louis Fowler