13 Nights of Hallowe'en 2010: Night #5 White Noise

It's the weekend before the big night, eight days yet to go. Tonight we have White Noise starring Michael Keaton as aman who becomes obsessed with EVPs, also know as Electronic Voice Phenomena. His preferred method is using video. What you do--yes you can try it for yourself, but hopefully you won't get results like portrayed in this film--is you find a blank television channel and you record the static for hours and hours. Then you play it back and somewhere along the line you find ghosts in the video. This is a method that is getting harder and harder to use with the decline of VCRs and the advent of digital TV broadcasts and the static filled unused channels being blocked by cable and satellite providers for your convenience. This is a very interesting movie. I was unfortunately saddled with a Pan & Scan copy and may have to repurchase Widescreen.

I think it says something that I'm considering double dipping over the problem that ended with me ordering the wrong version. It might be an easy answer if I start in with Blu-Ray--I haven't even considered the switch yet. White Noise puts me in mind of couple other films in pieces, a matter of mood, and of cinematography rather than plot or events per se. It has a sort of The Mothman Prophecies vibe and some of the scenes have the kind of visual feel that was present in the remake of the TV series Night Stalker (2005) starring Stuart Townsend. There is also some comparison to be made to The Sixth Sense--no not like that. I find it a little amusing that after all this time Keaton becomes involved in a movie about ghosts where he has to deal the repercussions of their existence such a long time after he played one of the most famous ghosts of cinema, Beetlejuice.

Mood: leery.

Music: Haunted by Poe. MP3s