Movie Review (SXSW Online 2021): Broadcast Signal Intrusion



March 22, 2021



Joseph Perry is the Film Festival Editor for Horror Fuel; all film festival related queries and announcements should be sent to him at josephperry@gmail.com. He is a contributing writer for the "Phantom of the Movies VideoScope" and “Drive-In Asylum” print magazines and the websites Gruesome Magazine, Diabolique Magazine, The Scariest Things, B&S About Movies, and When It Was Cool. He is a co-host of the "Uphill Both Ways" pop culture nostalgia podcast and also writes for its website. Joseph occasionally proudly co-writes articles with his son Cohen Perry, who is a film critic in his own right. A former northern Californian and Oregonian, Joseph has been teaching, writing, and living in South Korea since 2008.

Using the real-life 1987 Max Headroom signal hijacking of a television broadcast and the viral Tara the Android video of “I Feel Fantastic” as jumping-off points, director Jacob Gentry’s 1999-set Broadcast Signal Intrusion is an effective thriller that dwells in the realms of paranoia and conspiracy theories. Bolstered by a top-notch performance from Harry Shum Jr. as a widower who stumbles on the mysterious titular event and finds himself obsessed by it, the film is an intriguing journey down a curious rabbit hole.
Shum Jr. portrays James, who repairs audio and transcribes VHS media to DVD. One night, he accidentally catches sight of an eerie broadcast of a person dressed up like a TV character — a female robot adopted by a typical 1980s sitcom family — whose voice is masked by audio garble. When James learns that there are actually multiple broadcasts, including one that may or may not actually exist, he begins trying to piece together connections to get to the bottom of the puzzle, finding himself getting further into darker, more dangerous territory the more he digs. A loner by choice, James reluctantly teams up with Alice (Kelley Mack), a young woman who seemed to be stalking him but who has a knack for amateur detective work.
Gentry helms the proceedings well, and gets fine performances from his cast members. The screenplay from Phil Drinkwater and Tim Woodall is filled with engaging twists and turns, focusing on 1970s-style conspiracy thriller angles and adding some horror elements to the mix. Ben Lovett’s cool, jazzy soundtrack adds to that seventies vibe. The film stumbles a bit, however, with its pacing because of at least two characters who seem important for a few minutes but become almost inconsequential after their appearances.
Broadcast Signal Intrusion is a dark trip through a mostly analog world and a man’s obsession. I won’t give away the horror angles here because that would get into spoiler territory, but suffice it to say that the film heads into heavy territory once its enigmatic layers are peeled back.

Broadcast Signal Intrusion screened as part of SXSW Online 2021, which ran from March 16–20, 2021.