Movies - The Last Broadcast

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	Movies - The Last Broadcast

The Last Broadcast is a 1998 horror film made by Stefan Avalos and Lance Weiler.

History and The Blair Witch Project controversy

The Last Broadcast is a mockumentary made on a low budget, and was the first film to be screened, edited and filmed entirely digitally. It received a small initial release, but it was only after the success of The Blair Witch Project
in 1999 that The Last Broadcast gained much publicity, likely due to some similarities between the two films' plotlines.

Some have speculated that the Blair Witch was essentially plagiarized from The Last Broadcast. However, it has never been proven that the makers of The Blair Witch Project saw The Last Broadcast before making their film, also Avalos and Weiler have said in interviews that they only wish their film should be judged on its own merits.

However both films have similarities to 1977's Cannibal Holocaust
, but both sets of film makers have said that it was not influential upon their films. It's also worth noting that the basic trope of a document or artifact detailing someone's grim fate is older than motion pictures, dating at least back to Edgar Allan Poe.

Since the release of Blair Witch, The Last Broadcast has lived in its shadow. However it has picked up a cult following and has become modestly popular in its own right.

Synopsis

The film deals with a documentary film-maker named David Leigh, and his investigation of the Fact or Fiction murders, where a pair of cable tv hosts are murdered in mysterious circumstances. Leigh sets out to find the truth behind these killings while making his documentary.

Fact or Fiction was a show dealing with unsolved mysteries and the paranormal, its two hosts were Steven "Johnny" Avkast and Locus Wheeler. Initially successful as a show, we find out through Leigh's investigations that the show was failing, and indeed was near cancellation. It is at this point that Avkast comes up with the idea of a live irc section of the show. It is during one such chat that a caller gives Avkast the idea of searching for The Jersey Devil in the Pine Barrens. Leaping on this idea, Avkast and Wheeler recruit Rein Clackin, a soundman who can record the paranormal, and Jim Suerd, a psychic who Leigh has discovered to be emotionally disturbed. The plan is for the four to enter the Pine Barrens with Suerd leading them to the location of The Jersey Devil. During the hunt, they would broadcast a live show simultaneously via television, internet and ham radio. The four enter the Barrens but only Suerd emerges alive, the others are killed though Avkast's body is never found, though it is made clear in the following trial that he could not have survived the massive blood loss found at the crime scene.

Leigh then runs through the trial, Suerd as the only survivor is also the only suspect. To aid the prosecution case they employ a video engineer (nicknamed "The Killer Cutter") to compile a portrait of the group's trip using the surviving film footage found at the crime scene. Suerd is found guilty and is imprisoned, though there is doubt over whether he did it as his clothes were not drenched in blood and there is evidence he was engaged in an irc chat during the times of the murders.

Before anything can be proved, Suerd commits suicide in prison and the case is considered closed by the authorities. However Leigh has a box sent to him containing damaged videotape reel, which Leigh assumes is tape from the Fact or Fiction team thought not to exist. A data retrieval expert named Shelly Monarch is called in to reconstruct the images on the tape as much as possible. She finds that not only have Wheeler and Clacklin's deaths been caught on tape, but that Suerd could not have committed the murders.

What is also caught is a blurred image of the real killer, she can reconstruct this but it will take time. Leigh films Monarch as she reconstructs the face of the real killer and the audience sees just who is responsible for the murders.

It is revealed that the person making the documentary has killed the campers, and he also kills Monarch once the face appears. The format of the film shifts to watch him as he packs the body into his car. The last scene involves Leigh standing with the body wrapped up at his feet, talking into the camera as though everything is normal.

Cast list

David Beard .... David Leigh, The Filmmaker
Jim Seward.... James "Jim" L. Suerd, The Accused
Stefan Avalos.... Steven "Johnny" Avkast, "Fact or Fiction" Host
Lance Weiler.... Locus Wheeler, "Fact or Fiction" Host
Rein Clabbers.... Rein Clackin, Paranormal Sound Man
Michele Pulaski.... Michelle "Shelly" Monarch, Data Retrieval Expert
Tom Brunt.... Thomas "Tom" Branski, "Fact or Fiction" Video Engineer
Mark Rublee.... Clair Deforest, Video Editor for the Prosecution
A.D. Roso.... Detective Anthony Rosi, Lead Investigator
Dale Worstall.... Dr. Dale Orstall, Jim's Child Psychologist
Vann K. Weller.... Vann K. Waller, Forensic Pathologist
Sam Wells.... Sam Woods, Film & Television Director
Jay MacDonald.... Jay McDowell, Web Designer
Faith Weiler.... Joyce Dryer, Jim's Landlady
Marianne Connor.... Mary Brenner, TV Reporter

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