The year is 1999. James (Harry Shum Jr.) works the evening shift in the basement of a Chicago television station as a digital archivist, transferring the station's considerable analog tape archive to DVD. It's a lonely job, spending eight hours a night watching old broadcast recordings by yourself, but it suits him just fine. Since his wife Hannah's disappearance three years ago, he hasn't had much to live for.
While attempting to tune out yet another nightly news broadcast from the 1980s, James sees the signal distort momentarily, then the talking heads are replaced by the disturbing image of what appears to be a woman in a white latex mask and wig. The audio pitches and spikes, sounding almost like a scream, while the figure's mouth moves as though it's trying to talk. A few seconds later, the news feed returns. Someone with access to high-powered equipment managed to override the station's broadcast and replace it with one of their own.
Curious, and with little else interesting going on in his life aside from the occasional trip to his local support group for people who have lost loved ones to suicide, James begins investigating the bizarre signal break-in only to discover he's not the first person to look into this incident, and the FBI is maintaining a database on anyone who requests information about the signal break-in. What's more, James learns there was a second similar intrusion a short time later, but the tape of that particular broadcast is missing from the station archives.
While hunting for the second tape, James learns a woman was kidnapped the day after each signal intrusion happened. As if that wasn't bad enough, a rumored third intrusion took place the day before Hannah vanished. With his curiosity now replaced by obsession to find out why Hannah disappeared and who may have abducted her, James proceeds down a rabbit hole which has already wrecked the lives of other amateur investigators, risking his own sanity to discover the truth about his wife's ultimate fate.
I cannot express to you just how much I enjoyed this movie, but if you decide to watch it for yourself, I want you to promise me two things. First, I need you to temper your expectations -- I'm going to gush in this write-up, and I want that to influence you as little as possible. Second, I want you to set aside enough time that as soon as the credits roll, you can go back and watch it again. This is, absolutely, one of those movies.
One of the reasons this movie tickled my fancy is because I grew up at a time when signal intrusions like this happened periodically. I lived for a long time in northwestern Indiana, close enough to the Illinois border that we got Chicago programming over the airwaves. Anyone who's familiar with the Max Headroom signal hijacking incidents will immediately see the inspiration for the signal intrusions in this movie. Despite taking place nearly thirty-five years ago, with Chicago police, the FBI, and the FCC all pouring considerable resources into finding the culprit, the question of who overrode WGN during a newscast, and later WTTW during a broadcast of Doctor Who, has never been answered. Several other independent outlets, including Motherboard and Vice, not to mention a whole host of Redditors, YouTubers, and other amateur sleuths, have carried out their own investigations and likewise come up empty-handed. What's more, the statute of limitations on the crime expired in 1992 yet the people involved never claimed credit for what is one of the weirdest unsolved analog mysteries of the 20th century. At this point, barring a deathbed confession or some stunning revelation that's been staring us in the face all along, the answer to this signal hacker's identity will remain a real-life creepy-pasta mystery.
And, unlike many other unsolved crimes, this one involved no one actually getting hurt. It's just a fun rabbit hole to delve into, a mystery with a still-beating heart nearly four decades later. How delicious!
Broadcast Signal Intrusion is a paranoid delusion executed with skill and verve. Being a character study of one man's descent into darkness and obsession, with only the occasional side character interjection, the picture's full weight rests on Harry Shum's shoulders, a guy I recognized from being in Glee ten years ago, and the dude hauls it around like it's a helium-filled balloon. I'd watch this man in damn near anything: if he brings this level of skill and talent to an indie picture, you know he was born to perform.
But there's a reason I told you to set aside enough time to watch it twice. The picture ends at what feels like fifteen to twenty minutes before it should, and I'll admit, this left me scratching my head and wondering what the point of it all was. I guarantee, the first time you finish it, your first reaction will be, "What the fucking fuck?!". Your instinct will be to hop on Reddit, or YouTube, or your favorite movie discussion forum, and search out other people's reactions and explanations.
Believe me when I tell you to resist the absolute shit out of this urge.
In the movie, what starts James down the rabbit hole of conspiracy and paranoia is jumping on a local message board and reading what other people wrote and hypothesized. Writers Phil Drinkwater and Tim Woodall, along with director Jacob Gentry, are indirectly warning you about doing just that.
There are answers to be found here, but this is not a picture where everything is spelled out and spoon-fed to the audience. Gentry, Drinkwater, and Woodall are messing with their audience just as much as they're messing with James, and the solution to this is to do the opposite of what James does in the movie. Don't go down the rabbit hole.
Instead, now that you know what you know, and have seen what you have seen, watch the film again. If you're the sort who cannot be satisfied unless every single mystery's solution has been handed to you on a platter with little placards demarcating each clue, then you're going to hate Broadcast Signal Intrusion, because it requires your investment and active participation to draw your own conclusions.
On the other hand, if you're the sort who is OK with ambiguity, you're going to love it. It's the equivalent of being handed a box of Legos where there's a picture of what you're going to build on the cover, but the instruction sheet is missing. You know what the finished product should look like, but it'll take some trial-and-error and experimentation to get there. You'll probably have a couple pieces left over because you couldn't figure out what to do with them or where exactly they fit, but that's fine too.
I watched Broadcast Signal Intrusion four days ago, and I've been unable to get it out of my head ever since. This movie, in my opinion, is right up there with the likes of The Game, Funny Games, Twin Peaks, and other Fincher/Lynch-esque mind-twisting media.
Trust me on this: your first time through, you will be dissatisfied. Your second time through, you'll start seeing the forest for the trees, and things will fall into place: bits of dialog that seemed throw-away at first will take on new meaning, as will some character traits, and information you think the film imparts will be recognized for the deception it is.
Ultimately, your solution to the questions raised will probably differ slightly from mine. But just like that Lego set which can still stand up and be functional even if it's not built exactly the way the instruction sheet says, the point isn't to get it perfect, the point is to come as close as you can with the information you have, and understand that missing information can sometimes, itself, be information.
I have no problem at all recommending Broadcast Signal Intrusion to my fellow film fanatics here on Hive, especially @vincentnijman whose thoughts on this picture I would love to hear.
Broadcast Signal Intrusion is currently streaming on Shudder as of this writing, but it's available on other platforms as well. This is just where I caught it.
Favorite Scene:
A short time into the film, not long after we've been introduced to James and seen him attending a group session, he approaches and has a short conversation with another group member named Nora (Jennifer Jelsema), a woman whose husband committed suicide. A bit later, after another group session, James and Nora have another short talk, this time with her approaching him and asking if he'd like to be her companion at a barbecue some friends of hers are having.
These two interactions are perfectly acted, and contain the most heart-breaking scenes in the film. Both times, James is offered "an out" to his obsessive quest; both times, he rejects it. In fact, James rejects every out he's offered over the course of the movie, pushing ever forward to a conclusion we instinctively know he will not be satisfied with.
And yet, we go with him regardless.
Thanks for the recommendation, buddy!
Glad I am OCD on notifications, so I found this mention ;<)
Movies that come to mind, when reading this, are Videodrome, The Game, Berberian Sound Studio and, I guess, SAW.
I am intrigued to watch this one of these days. Let's see if I can set aside the time to watch it twice in a row. These days I am hardly patient enough to watch an entire movie. Summer vibes mixed with back issues and the usual restlessness.
I skipped the last part of your review, to avoid possible spoilers.
P.S. I only learnt about Max Headroom, recently and still don't know much about the phenomenon. I myself can't remember more than picking up on a baby phone frequency ( hearing the sound of a baby crying ), while tuning an old radio / 'world receiver', searching for a broadcast, back in the late 80s, early 90s or so. I can only imagine how it was to get your TV broadcast interrupted / hijacked by funny TV 'pirates'.
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