Obviously this is shot on really low quality cameras with very rudimentary special effects. The sound quality is poor at best with much wind noise and bass rumble on the microphones. Then again it is deliberate and perfectly fits the intended tone. This is probably the cleverest use of budget. There is no budget and they make a quite well crafted horror out of it. You get the feeling that they are really passionate about making films. There is some repetition as they struggled slightly to fill the time but overall it is interesting throughout. There are some really creepy moments that they could have taken further. I didn't like the third person ending; they could have kept it part of the documentary. It is inspirational for those wanting to make movies with a bit of substance with no money. Add some more thrills and this would have been much bigger. Obvious deliberate technical deficiencies are made up for by passion and suspense.

Mockumentary The Last Broadcast investigates an incident known as The Jersey Devil Murders, in which members of the cast and crew of a cable TV show were brutally butchered while filming at the Pine Barrens. The only survivor of the massacre, Jim Suerd (Jim Seward), was found guilty of the killings, but was he really responsible?To be brutally honest, who cares? Preceding the thematically and stylistically similar The Blair Witch Project by a year, the film proves even more tedious than its more famous (and highly over-rated) counterpart, with numerous dry interviews with people associated with the case, and lots of grainy, wobbly video footage, none of which I found the slightest bit scary.If The Last Broadcast had shed just a little bit of light on the legend of The Jersey Devil itself (a horrifying creature that is supposed to live in the Pine Barrens), then it might have been more interesting, but the monster is merely a McGuffin, rarely mentioned and certainly never seen.After lots of admittedly convincing interrogation and analysis, the film completely drops the ball by abandoning the documentary format for a more traditional approach in which the identity of the killer is finally revealed. This abrupt change in style totally ruins the authenticity of the movie and smacks of a film-maker who couldn't think of any other way to wrap things up.

OK, so let me start by saying that, for me, The Blair Witch Project is the greatest horror film I've seen since it's release back in 1999. I've seen a lot of great horror since then but nothing has surpassed it.The Jersey Devil is an excellent premise as most of us have heard of this unsettling legend.They use the documentary style very well to cover the story of the cult cable show creators and their sound guy murdered in the woods, supposedly by the psychic they take along, Jim Suerd, while filming a story on the Jersey Devil. The documentary maker sets out to prove the innocence of Jim, who has since mysteriously died in his prison cell from unknown causes. Using the method of interviews with police and others involved in the case, retracing the steps of the crew and viewing the footage the crew themselves took on their first fateful night in the Pine Barrens, the film maker attempts to get an understanding of exactly what happened. The found footage of their adventure into the woods doesn't scare outright but it sets a tone that slowly creeps in and effectively plants the seeds of dread and fear combined with the interviews and back stories. What happens after this moment is completely speculation to the authorities. Jim is the only survivor and is the one to report the others as missing the following day. Finding DNA matching blood on his jacket that is carelessly flung on his bedroom floor for anyone to discover incriminates him. The fact that he's been on a primitive online chat room during most of the night doesn't even save his bacon when the police find a 45 minute gap in his posts that would give him enough time to commit the carnage. The fact that I felt very unsettled by this stage without actually seeing anything is a testament to how well they executed this up to this point. Exactly what happened to these guys? You get a glimpse of the dead bodies through police photos of Locus (a co-host of the show) and Rein (the sound guy) which is adequately horrific. The main host, Steven, is missing but his hat lying on the forest floor along with copious amounts of blood is found. The next part of the film had me brimming with excitement that perhaps, just perhaps, this film may be the one that outshines TBWP. The documentary filmmaker receives an anonymous package in the post with crumpled up VHS tape, damaged to the point where it's impossible for him to view it. Enter Michelle, a data retrieval expert, who is put to task to slowly reconstruct the damaged tape, some of which is still intact and other parts are severely damaged and she uses her expertise to "guide" the computer to recreate the images in the mangled tape. This next segment of the film had me on the edge of my seat. You get view some footage of Locus and Rein yelling out to Steve in the dark woods after he's gone missing. They happen upon the bloody pool of what is left of Steve and are attacked by something, the initial fear in their faces insinuating something beyond human recognition. Now, this is where I love the found footage genre. The footage is very shaky, grainy and you can't quite see what's going on, which adds to the effect. Jim is exonerated from guilt, he would have been online at that time posting on the net. Meanwhile, Michelle seems to have found a piece of tape where a different perspective has been filmed during this incident and the face of "another" is slowly being reconstructed. This is where it gets really good. We keep revisiting Michelle on her quest to find the face of the killer and the image is slowly progressing into something that will become recognizable. Are we actually going to see the Jersey Devil? By this stage I'm certain that this is the film that has finally surpassed TBWP. The final stages of her reconstruction of this face are slowly building up to a pinnacle... what am I about to see? STOP!!!! Surely to Christ no? My worst fears are confirmed. The face turns out to be the documentary film maker who proceeds to kill Michelle in plastic. The film descends into a sharp downward spiral from that moment on. All that build about "the Jersey Devil may really be out there" just gets quashed in a matter of seconds. In comparison, that documentary film maker is about as scary as Mary Poppins. Not only that, all of a sudden, the found footage/documentary genre is thrown out the window and the "murderer" is being filmed in a conventional format in the woods with the dead body of Michelle at his feet. THE END. WTF?! How could you destroy such a perfect build up with that pathetic dribble? I'm sure they're scratching their own heads now and wishing they could turn back the clock. This brings me back to the TBWP. You cannot fault the execution and the ending. We still to this day can use our own imagination as to what happened to Josh, Heather and Mike. Was it the Blair Witch?, was it Rustin Parr?, was it a random inbred psycho? The ending of The Last Broadcast could have had so many other infinitely better options than one they chose. You could have at least half shown the face to be some sort of Jersey Devil looking creature or you could have left it up in the air as to what it was and fed the mystery. Jesus, I don't know, anything but that ending! This would have been a perfect 10/10 for me. The ending slashed it back to 6/10.

THE LAST BROADCAST is a fake documentary executed in a similar style to THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, a very famous movie that it is often compared to whether in a positive or negative context.The plot of the documentary is actually very interesting. A fictional TV series is seeing its viewing figures dwindle. In an effort to prevent its end, the producers decide to film an episode showing a search for a local mythical legend known as the "Jersey Devil". The start of the movie explains how 3 of the 4 TV crew were found dead. The sole survivor was charged with and found guilty of the murders of the others. A filmmaker decides to gather the evidence surrounding the case to prove the survivor's innocence. The documentary he makes constitutes THE LAST BROADCAST.Despite an interesting concept (a documentary examining in great detail the evidence of a murder case in order to disprove a convicted man's innocence) and also an interesting embedded story (the search for a local legend in the woods), sitting through THE LAST BROADCAST is one massive endurance test. I barely made it to the end and was constantly looking at the elapsed running time, cheering myself for surviving another minute of this cinematic torture.Now I'll go through the individual elements to demonstrate why THE LAST BROADCAST is so terrible.First, the narration. This is a fake documentary. As such, there is plenty of narration and often over still images. For this to capture interest, the narrator has to convince us that there is some significance to these images in relation to the rest of the work. Unfortunately, the narration is - as another reviewer has pointed out on here - done in a very monotone manner that fails to invoke even the slightest interest.Second, the direction. For this story to work, the "interviews", video extracts, still images of exhibits and so on must all be carefully co-ordinated to ensure a clear narrative. Unfortunately, everything just seems to be jumbled up, without a specific order or structure. This makes it highly difficult to keep track of what the "documentary" is trying to tell us. Also, the home video extracts are very poorly filmed with no tension, suspense, scares, thrills or even laughs.Third, the acting. The actors can be divided into three categories - the narration (done by the "director"), the crew of the fictional TV series and the "inteviewees" (police investigators, reporters, psychologists and so on). The acting is poor right across the board. Anyone who has seen an episode of a real documentary series (THE FBI FILES for example) will immediately be able to tell that the "experts" in this fake documentary are actors (and very bad ones at that). The crew of the fictional TV series do not seem the least bit scared or even interested by the investigation they are doing. And as already mentioned, the narration is monotone.The only positive comment I can make about this excuse for a movie is the twist ending where there is actually a scene that is interesting to watch. Unfortunately it is not worth sitting through the remaining 80+ minutes to reach.If you want to see a truly great fake documentary, I highly recommend GHOSTWATCH - an excellent piece of work that is carefully scripted, genuinely puts you on the edge of your seat, contains great scares and still makes you question what you've seen even when you know it's a phony.If you want to see a great horror movie done in the style of a camcorder home video, I highly recommend REC, a fast-paced thrill ride from beginning to end that is genuinely scary and tense.Finally, I advise everyone to avoid THE LAST BROADCAST like the plague!