WNUF Halloween Special / Chris LaMartina (2013)
Found footage is difficult to pull of well. The conceit of the capture of the footage is as important as any character in the film. Why was the film or video was being shot? Why was it was being saved or hidden. Who found it? WNUF Halloween Special nails this with an interesting framing later borrowed by the V|H|S 94 Storm Drain. The film you're watching is the supposed VCR recording of a local TV news broadcast from Halloween 1987, where a news crew documents a house that was the location of infamous murders.
What the film does right
WNUF Halloween Special gets the details of local TV news exactly right. Chris LaMartina's composition and cinematography (videography?) are spot on, across the board. The main character, new correspondent, Frank Stewart (Paul Fahrenkopf), is just right as the smug, neighborhood celebrity who acts like he knows more than the viewers at home and the people who have come to his location shoot. He winks at the camera, playfully mocks the locals, and thinks he's in for just another local remote. This set up gives us the info we need to suspend disbelief. The footage was captured by the camera crew of WNUF. It was recorded by someone in the town during its original broadcast. It's become the kind of video tape that is copied and passed along from person to person; an urban legend committed to cheap magnetic tape.
The fake commercial breaks. Wow. Having grown up watching this type of news in the late '80s, these are dead on. The tone, the content, the businesses they advertise are all accurate to the period and location of the film.
The light weight of local news. Throughout the film, the anchors and Frank Stewart keep it morning show light and breezy. When things get scary and violent, they're not at all sure how to handle it. You can tell the WNUF team is not experienced in hard hitting journalism.
Wrong footing the audience is a good idea. The movie is heavy handed about the Webber murders, the vacant home and the reported ghost sightings in setting up the premise. Having an alternate, surprise resolution is a good idea.
It may not be intentional, but this film has been somewhat hard to find for on-demand viewing. That plays into the trope of the forbidden tape; one more layer of uncertainty.
What the film does wrong
Those elements alone make the film a curiosity worth watching. However, once the novelty of the execution wears off, there's not much left. Besides Fahrenkopf's solid performance, the rest of the cast feels amateurish in a way that plays into the expectations of a horror film on VHS instead of subverting it.
Once the novelty wears off, there's not much left.
The commercial breaks. Though they may be a highlight of the film, they get old. Quick. Like watching actual television, there are too many of the commercial breaks. They are used as convenient cut points to allow for the action to advance, but they stifle any tension that might be allowed to build, but unfortunately never does. The breaks are overly long and repetitive, and beyond tone-setting, add nothing to the narrative. I've got the carpet warehouse commercial stuck in my head.
Sticking to the well-executed TV news format prevents the story from developing. On one hand, respect for the consistency and quality of that approach. On the other, TV news is designed to be semi-dull.
Ultimately, watching is a good time, earning the film its star. At under 90 minutes, it's breezy and fun. It is about as scary as an episode of Goosebumps and there's not much plot. On first view, the film's outcome was fairly obvious to an average horror viewer.
Key scene
Spoilers below.
The person in the window. When Frank Stewart is preparing the locals on-site and the viewers at home for his entry into the Webber House, he's delivering his polished audience teaser to camera, gesturing at the stoop, the door, the facade, the windows. The camera follows his hand and tilts up revealing a quickly moving–something–in the window. He narrates the action, and for the first time seems unsure of what he's signed up for.
This is early in the film, and hints at a change in tone from playful news remote to frightening news coverage. It gives some hope of the tension that could be in store.
Own it