WNUF Halloween Special (2013)


If one is a filmmaker with a paycheck's worth of a budget there is always a way.  In the case of director Chris LaMartina that way was to recreated a television broadcast from 1987.  Taking a cue from independent UHF stations at the time, particularly Baltimore station WNUV, he and his crew sought to recreate the feel of a low-budget broadcast from the time.  Along the way there is a healthy dose of Satanic panic as well as satire on smarmy exploitative journalists and the misplaced nostalgia many have for the 1980s. 

We begin with an episode of the WNUF Channel 28 evening news, with anchors Gavin Gordon (Richard Cutting) and Deborah Merritt (Leanna Chamish) all decked out in costumes with a chintzy Halloween set behind them.  After the usual news events (sans sports), along with commercials, we are informed of the upcoming WNUF Halloween Special hosted by Frank Stewart (Paul Fahrenkopf).  With the husband and wife paranormal investigation team of Dr. Louis Berger (Brian St. August) and Claire Berger (Helenmary Ball) and their cat Shadow they intend to contact the spirits in a house where gruesome murders occurred years before.

As the special goes on disturbing things begin happening in the house and the crew also find themselves harassed by a group of fundamentalists led by Angela Harris (Kendra North), a woman who believes that any celebration of Halloween is blasphemy.  As things begin to ramp up it becomes evident that Frank, and his guests, may all be in danger.

The whole thing is done in a tongue-in-cheek manner and, though LaMartina is the main director, a number of the commercials and news reports were done by others and edited together to make the final film.  Those involve back-and-forth attack ads between gubernatorial candidates, carpet commercials and a number of spots for the local mall.  At times they are put on fast-forward, giving the viewer the sense that they have a friend showing them something that is out of the ordinary that they just happened to get on video cassette.

It is amusing but after a while it does become somewhat annoying.  The shows do go to commercial break more often than they did at the time; it was often, but not as frequent as commercial stations now.  It seems this was exaggerated just to try to get them all in.  The concept was good and, unlike Late Night with the Devil which tries to be both a scripted movie and a documentary, WNUF Halloween Special stays in its lane.  Unfortunately, it also seems like they didn't know where to go with it, as the ending is about as anticlimactic as The Blair Witch Project.  

WNUF Halloween Special (2013)
Time: 83 minutes
Starring: Paul Fahrenkopf, Richard Cutting, Leanna Chamish, Brian St. August, Helenmary Ball, Robert Long II
Director: Chris LaMartina

 

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