Movie Details
| Title: | WNUF Halloween Special | |
| Director: | James Branscome, Shawn Jones, Chris LaMartina | |
| Year: | 2013 | |
| Genre: | Horror | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 11.02.25 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 11.02.25 | Internet | This Screening is part of event: Virtual All Night Horror Movie Marathon 6 It's a real shame I couldn't stay up to watch this last night. It's a perfect pick for a last-slot in a Halloween marathon. I've been trying to remember where I'd heard of this before... I know I haven't seen it but someone somewhere I think told me about it because as soon as the movie started playing I knew what it was. In any case, this was a real fun way to wrap up the series! This is a found footage horror comedy fake vhs tape of a regional tv station's halloween night of programming. It starts off with local news then gets to the titular special where a local news guy investigates a local house that's supposedly haunted after a ouija-board related killing. What the movie's really about is farming nostalgia for any kid who stayed up late watching tv in the 80s or early 90s. There are a ton of fake commercials (arguably too many toward the end) for all the things you remember: local stores, 900 numbers, rock compilations, demolition derbies, you name it. They also nail the tone of local pre-globalization tv stations very well in a more-real-than-real way that probably never actually existed. Plus I love the commitment to the bit where there are no credits and no title cards. It just starts up like a VHS tape you might've found and ends like a home-recorded tape might end. There is a bit of fast-forwarding which I'm of two minds about. On the one hand it supposes that I'm watching someone else watch this tape? which doesn't make a lot of sense? But on the other, I appreciate where after the same commercial comes on for the third time I don't have to sit through it again. I think I might've rather had a rough cut with tracking issues where the person that recorded the tape paused during the commercials. I recognize that that's a very minor nitpick but I also think the audience for this movie is all about these minor meticulous details. Like it's clear the filmmakers duped their output several times to degrade their image and make it feel like real VHS artifacting rather that some digital filter which I really appreciate. I certainly had tapes similar to this growing up so I know what they were going for and think they nailed it. It might also help that from 89 on I was watching tv and cable in Maryland. I don't think we got Baltimore feeds so it was never WNUV but certainly our local news feeds did come from DC so I'd see these types of mid-atlantic township names all over. My town had a road named Opposumtown Pike which would be hard to make up. If I was to offer some criticisms, I do think they throw to commercial way too much. I get it, gotta keep the movie moving, but especially at the end when it shifts toward more of a Blair Witch vibe to try and build suspense there's just too many commercials. News segments were more than 90 seconds between commercials you know? I also thought it could've actually veered a little tiny bit more into horror with the main segment, kind of like how Kentucky Fried Movie lets its feature attraction Enter the Dragon spoof have its own reel relatively unbroken. Did we watch another shot-on-vhs movie for this marathon last year? In any case, I think the actual Halloween Special segment of the movie, if given a little more breathing room, could deliver an actual thrill. But that's about it. For the most part I really liked it. I liked it enough to go buy a copy along with its sequel so I can check that out sometime. Mostly I'm glad this popped up so I could see it. Like I said, I feel like someone told me this existed at some point but it was not on my radar or list of movies to watch or anything so this was great. And that's that. Again, maybe next year I'll actually be in sync with everyone else and be able to join the zoom call and enjoy with everyone else as intended, but even in this out-of-sync spin-off I still had a fun time and thanks to Grant and Sara for thinking of including me! |
