WNUF Halloween Special

I don’t like the found footage subgenre of horror, for a very simple reason: its very conceit, its central design, is unbelievable. It requires the viewer to believe that, despite the horrific situation, someone is keeping it together and keeping the camera rolling. I’ve yet to see a situation where it makes sense. WNUF Halloween Special finally found a way for it to make sense. But in the process, they break their own narrative and derail the movie. The idea is of a TV special from 1987, filmed on a VCR, that was lost to time until now. The TV special is of a local, non-main network channel’s news broadcast on Halloween night, mainly a “news special” with a reporter coming from the house where a young man killed his parents after being told to do so by a Ouija board, complete with psychics and a Catholic priest. It’s exactly the kind of lame publicity stunt broadcast a local news broadcast would do to take advantage of the holiday. So, it makes sense that cameras would keep rolling here. And I cannot say enough about how far the movie goes in capturing the essence of an 80’s news broadcast. The movie was shot on period appropriate film stock, then transferred over several VHS tapes to give it that faded, milky appearance of video from back then. The news anchors are just that right mix of vapid, insipid and phony for B-tier local news. There’s a reporter … who adds in pauses … every few words … whether it makes sense … or not. The host of the Halloween special is that unctuous jackass who thinks because he’s a reporter, he’s some kind of god, and makes no attempt to mask his contempt for anybody, including viewers live on the air. And the commercials (since this is taped off a TV broadcast) are perfect; ads for arcades, local businesses, cheesy 80’s TV shows, 900 numbers and more, all feel as accurate as if they were real and edited into the movie. The chyron graphics and the wipes are all as 80’s as you can get. The problem with all what hurt WandaVision: the dedication to verisimilitude gets in the way of the story. The first 20 minutes are the evening news, including stories about a local dentist doing candy buybacks and how nasty the governor’s race is getting. WHY IS THIS IN THE MOVIE?!? The commercials are as frequent as you’d expect for local news — every 5 minutes or so — which is a HUGE problem when you’re trying to build tension. They try to work around this by breaking up the story into segments, but it just doesn’t work, because you’re stuck watching fake ads for a discount carpet wholesaler instead of seeing how the horror escalates. Immersion in the authenticity of the medium itself comes at the expense of storytelling. And then there’s the ending. If you don’t want to be spoiled, stop now and just know it’s a muddled mess. Earlier in the movie, we’re told about a group of Christian fundamentalists protesting the special and the very existence of Halloween, saying it is an affront to God. Turns out all the bumps and noises and the killing of the psychic’s cat during the broadcast were done by these fundamentalists. In the final moments of the broadcast, the host is assaulted by one of them and knocked to the ground; the movie then goes to a technical difficulties screen. After some static, it’s back in the house, only it looks like a camcorder now. The group has  killed everyone (three camera operators, the psychic couple and the priest), which is remarkable. They bound and gag the reporter host, and then remove his gag and cut out his tongue. More static, cut to a news broadcast five days later, where the anchors are talking about their missing colleagues, seemingly unaware of the previous footage (before transitioning to a Christmas story, just like the news would do). So, how did the tongue-cutting footage get in? Is this the killers’ personal copy and they spliced it in? Or are the news reporters in denial on the air for appearance’s sake? It’s a rushed mess of an ending, which comes after a movie that drags its heels for so long, spending more time amazed at its ability to mimic 35 year old TV than it is telling a story. And it’s a real shame, because the format COULD be used effectively.  But this isn’t it.