Probably the most fascinating part of this entire film for me was that it was made in 1998. There's just something endlessly compelling about watching an extremely obscure amateur-style film from over 2 decades ago while perpetually being reminded that I'm getting older. It's a sensation completely different from watching a professionally filmed Hollywood movie from the 90s, probably similar to reading a personal diary from someone written in the 1800s rather than a professionally published novel.

But the film itself was mildly intriguing in its own right. My only gripe would be that there was an insufficient balance between the first half (Jim and the trial and the sequence of events leading to the murder) and the second half (casting doubt on the alleged guilt of the suspect and an extremely slight possibility of the supernatural).

I am a complete sucker for subtlety in movies like this, and this film executed it perfectly, to the point where any and all supernatural or paranormal implications are so slight that you could easily miss it completely.

But while those things are dealt with with great subtlety, the film itself doesn't manage to rise beyond "mild" in terms of interest or excitement or compulsion. Aside from the incoherent ending, it all amounts to being overall "Neat", not so much boring or even entertaining. Just kind of neat.

As a big fan of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, there was no way I could really avoid seeing this film. Touted as a precursor to that horror phenomenon, indeed the two films are similar in many ways and it's difficult to believe that the creators of the BWP didn't see this film before they began work on theirs. In terms of horror, BWP has the edge slightly, but THE LAST BROADCAST still manages to be extremely frightening during some key scenes.

Instead of relying solely on recovered footage, this takes the form of a mock-documentary. All sorts of evidence is thrown in our faces - tape recordings, interviews with key players, newspaper articles, courtroom verdicts, and, of course, the key footage, making this a well-rounded and interesting film. Unfortunately, for the first hour, it's pretty slow-moving too, with the real horrors only beginning towards the end of the film. As a side note, clever use of the Internet as a factor in the incident is used.

The low budget, amateurish feel is clear, yet this really does make the film feel like a cheapie documentary you might see on a cable channel. While we never get to sympathise with the characters as much as we did in THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (none of them are particularly likable),the acting is all rather good considering that no famous names are involved and most people involved are, indeed, amateurs. Special mention should go to David Beard, who plays the maker of the documentary and acts as a narrator for the film's running length, as he is surprisingly good and surpasses first impressions.

The film plays more like a murder mystery than a horror film for the first hour, but crime fans will enjoy the clues and twists that are included. When a crinkled reel of videotape is discovered, the horror really begins. We're subjected to some grainy, jumpy scenes heavily resembling key moments in THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, which are just as frightening. One of the party disappears and the others go to look for him, eventually discovering a huge quantity of blood in the snow - this scene is actually terrifying. More creepiness ensues when reconstruction of a crucial frame is applied, which purports to show the killer's face. As the fuzzy features become clear, this is highly disturbing...

And then the twist comes. It's completely unexpected, and confused/annoyed a lot of people. A problem with the ending is that events are suddenly played out in third person, whereas for the rest of the film they haven't been, and this ruins the atmosphere by taking the viewer out of the film entirely. While this aspect destroyed all credibility for me, the identity of the killer is actually well thought out, and when you think about it, you'll realise a number of clues have been shown in the film's running time. THE LAST BROADCAST is a curiosity that deserves looking into, and probably one of the most interesting and best horror films of 1998.

Mockumentary The Last Broadcast investigates an incident known as The Jersey Devil Murders, in which members of the cast and crew of a cable TV show were brutally butchered while filming at the Pine Barrens. The only survivor of the massacre, Jim Suerd (Jim Seward),was found guilty of the killings, but was he really responsible?

To be brutally honest, who cares? Preceding the thematically and stylistically similar The Blair Witch Project by a year, the film proves even more tedious than its more famous (and highly over-rated) counterpart, with numerous dry interviews with people associated with the case, and lots of grainy, wobbly video footage, none of which I found the slightest bit scary.

If The Last Broadcast had shed just a little bit of light on the legend of The Jersey Devil itself (a horrifying creature that is supposed to live in the Pine Barrens),then it might have been more interesting, but the monster is merely a McGuffin, rarely mentioned and certainly never seen.

After lots of admittedly convincing interrogation and analysis, the film completely drops the ball by abandoning the documentary format for a more traditional approach in which the identity of the killer is finally revealed. This abrupt change in style totally ruins the authenticity of the movie and smacks of a film-maker who couldn't think of any other way to wrap things up.