It seems as if some of the best films coming out of festivals are always the genre films. Sundance had In The Earth, Violation, and We’re All Going to the World’s Fair. Out of this year’s SXSW, Jacob Gentry’s movie about pirate broadcasts, starring Harry Shum Jr., sounded fascinating, and at times, it was.
Broadcast signal intrusion is the term used when someone hijacks broadcast signals to showcase their own. In this Broadcast Signal Intrusion, James (Shum Jr.) works a graveyard shift as a video archivist. One night, he is sifting through tape after tape until he stumbles upon one that is eerily familiar to him. As he’s watching the tape from 1987, he sees an interruption that includes an odd robot-like figure that is making odd noises and voices. It reminds him of a face that has been haunting his dreams. He’s also been dreaming of his wife Hannah, who has been missing for the past three years. Instead of fully coping with her loss, James throws himself into night shifts and sleeps during the day — the perfect job for him to lose touch with reality. He soon becomes obsessed with these intrusions, the second occurring a week later. At his job, he slowly begins to focus entirely on his investigation instead. He finds himself looking for every single connection to try and solve a mystery that he doesn’t understand. He meets with strange people who contact him to talk about different possibilities, and what they all could mean. A lot of these meet-ups feel taken right out of other films about investigations and they inspired a lot of what went into this film.
It’s clear that the film has a lot of inspirations. One of the most important is the Max Headroom incident, which took place on November 22, 1987 (both November 22nd and the year 1987 play significant parts in the story as well). There are also moments that feel like a reference to Brian De Palma’s Blow Out, suchas when James slows down the sound of a tape to hear the hidden message found in it. Later, James meets with a media studies professor late at night in a parking garage that is reminiscent of Alan J. Pakula’s All the President’s Men, which inspired David Fincher on Zodiac.
Zodiac feels like a big touchstone for Jacob Gentry’s film, not only in some of the hue and color choices but even the atmosphere. The atmosphere and tone are some of the best things about the film, as it dives into James’ obsession with these tapes. With every day, he dreams of more images of a potential third tape that hasn’t been found yet. This begs the question of whether he’s somehow seen this tape before, or if it is a figment of his imagination.
The script goes back and forth between either trying to be on the nose or very coy about answers. Throughout the film, James keeps being watched by a hooded figure. Eventually, in a bar, he meets Alice (Kelley Mack). The scene in which they meet is edited very oddly, it’s aggressive in comparison to the rest of the film. While the film is normally fluid and giving us hints, it’s a scene that begs us to pay attention — even when what they’re showing feels lackluster and minimal.
There is a very dark glooming element of missing women that looms over the film. We are left with mysteries and the only people who truly have the answers are those behind the incident as they’ve never been caught. Broadcast Signal Intrusion brings more questions in the finale than answers, which might anger some, but it had me thinking about the things I saw and the possibilities of how much was real. Shum Jr. gives an incredible performance as a man who has no answers to why his wife has disappeared overnight, and who is unable to move on.
Between the atmosphere and the performances, it’s not always enough to hold our attention. The film loses its footing as we fall deeper down this rabbit hole and causes viewers to lose interest. But even as the film stumbles along, it’s Shum Jr. who gives us many reasons to watch closely. Broadcast Signal Intrusion brings no true answers and even begins to ask more questions before it ends, but feels like it’ll fit alongside the creepypasta lore of the internet, where there is rarely an answer.
