2024
Watching Broadcast Signal Intrusion on a whim, I was struck by an eerie synchronicity – like A Stir of Echoes, which I’d just watched, this film is set in Chicago, 1999. It’s a strange coincidence that has me experiencing yet another slice of late ’90s Windy City life, a world I’ve only glimpsed through the lens of pop culture. This neo-noir feels like a funhouse mirror version of that other film, reflecting a tech-obsessed underbelly of the same city at the same time.
The movie follows James, our protagonist, as he stumbles upon bizarre pirate broadcasts that hijack regular programming. Picture masked figures popping up on screen, looking like they crawled out of a glitchy nightmare. It’s the kind of urban myth I would’ve read about online years later, marveling at the strangeness of it all from the safety of my bedroom.
James, still reeling from the mysterious disappearance of his wife Hannah two years ago, dives into this rabbit hole headfirst, and as he delves deeper, he uncovers a conspiracy theory on message boards linking these broadcasts to missing girls, adding layers of intrigue and unease to his search. Harry Shum Jr. plays James with an intense, slightly unhinged energy that had me completely invested, and the supporting cast is full of eccentrics who feel like they’ve stepped out of those weird, late-night cable shows I’ve heard so much about but never actually stayed up to watch.
Sometimes, the film gets a bit hazy on the details, prioritizing mood over a clear-cut narrative. But that haziness works for me. It’s like trying to piece together a story from forum posts and second-hand accounts – the details might be fuzzy, but the atmosphere lingers. Broadcast Signal Intrusion left me with that uneasy feeling I get after reading about real-life mysteries late at night, jumping at shadows and wondering about the strange possibilities that all the crazy internet posters with names like pacorabanneswiener have put into my head.
For anyone who’s ever been intrigued by stories of strange, obsessive technology or urban legends, this film will resonate. It’s a deep dive into retro-tinted unease and watching it now, so soon after A Stir of Echoes, it feels like I’ve stumbled into a hidden chapter of 1999 Chicago – a city apparently rife with psychic phenomena and sinister broadcasts.
If you’re a fan of films and books like Berberian Sound Studio, Censor, Archive 81, Experimental Film, Universal Harvester, Silver Nitrate, or Schrader’s Chord, you’ll likely dig this film. They all tap into that uneasy space where technology, media, and human perception intersect, creating a sense of paranoia that seeps through the screen or off the page. It’s a feeling of reality being slightly off-kilter, where the familiar suddenly becomes alien and threatening. There’s a shared fascination with the act of looking – really looking – at the world around us, and the terror that can come from seeing too much. These stories all seem to ask: What if the glitches, the interruptions, the things we usually ignore, are actually trying to tell us something? They share a quality of leaving you feeling slightly altered after experiencing them, as if you’ve been initiated into some cryptic understanding of the world that you can’t quite pin down but can never fully shake off.
31 Days of Horror Day Three in years past: 2023 // 2022 // 2021
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