White Noise

People really do believe in this EVP stuff. I looked it up. EVP means Electronic Voice Phenomena. Here's the theory: ghosts are made up of energy, and sometimes this energy can actually be picked up by current recording technology, like tape recorders or VCR's. So, theoretically, if you record static on a television or press record on a tape recorder in an empty room, you can actually hear messages from beyond the grave.

Yeah, it's stupid. Maybe not ouija board stupid, but still pretty stupid. I mean, I don't believe in ghosts at all, so there goes the whole theory right there. But even if you do believe in an afterlife, or in some sort of human form that remains on Earth even after the body has died, do you really think it would try to communicate with the living through a VCR?

I mean, people who have expereinced EVP say they can "hear" messages from their dead relatives, and even "see" images of the dead on television screens. But after your body has died, would your voice really sound the same? I mean, if ghosts are composed of energy, or souls, or whatever, why would they retain the same vocal pattern as their human selves? Because your voice is just the combination of your throat's acoustics and the properties of your vocal chords.

Also, isn't this a really dreary, uninteresting idea about the afterlife? I mean, you die, your soul remains here on Earth, and then you...weakly try to chat with the family members you just saw when you were alive? I mean, if I was an ethereal spirit trapped in this realm, I think I'd do something I've never done before, like fly around the Grand Canyon or spy on supermodels in the shower or haunt Zach Braff. I wouldn't enter my dad's computer and tell him "everything's gonna be alright."

So, anyway, it's obviously not a real scientifically observable thing that's happening, but just another crazy superstition. Which doesn't neccessarily mean it couldn't make for a cool horror movie. Unfortunately, White Noise is a totally crummy horror movie.



The whole "loved one dies and then communicates with the living" idea has kind of been done to death. Most famously, high-powered banker Patrick Swayze (chuckle...) remained behind on Earth to pitch woo and his still-alive girlfriend Demi Moore in the reprehensibly overpraised Ghost. You'll recall, Whoopi Goldberg won an Oscar for that movie...

And there was also the immensely forgettable Costner stinkeroo Dragonfly, in which his dead wife commanded a group of children to draw pictures of dragonflies for his benefit. And, I mean, there's about a hundred billion more. It's a scenario that makes a lot of metaphorical sense...They have a love that is truly "powerful." It can escape the most powerful force on the planet...Death.

It just usually makes piss poor movies, and White Noise is no exception. I think the biggest problem here isn't so much the familiarity of the subject matter, but EVP itself. It's just not a very cinematic situation. Instead of heart-pounding action or slowly-building dread, the movie's filled with shots of a man sitting around a bank of monitors scanning them for any signs of supernatural life. Yawn.

The man in question is Jonathan Rivers (Michael Keaton), whose pregnant wife Anna (Chandra West) has died under highly mysterious circumstances. She was changing a flat tire by a cliff, you see, when she fell down onto the craggy, sharp rocks below, dying instantly. The police rule it an accidental death but...hmmm...I don't know...

Anyway, Jonny starts receiving messages from his dead wife on his cell phone. He's told by an EVP expect (Ian McNeice) that Anna's trying to contact him, so of course what else can he do but buy a bunch of TV's and VCR's and keep them recording static at all times, in the hopes of finding a message from Anna.

In Screenwriting 101, they teach you about something called a "pregnant moment." This is the event in your screenplay that spurns on all the action. In other words, what happens that causes the action of the script to happen now, as opposed to any other point in history. Scripts without a pregnant moment tend to seem aimless or inconsequential. Well, White Noise has a very pregnant moment - a man's wife, who is with child, dies in a horrible accident. Unfortunately, it has nowhere to go from there. It's a premise in search of a story.

Director Geoffrey Wax and screenwriter Niall Johnson do what they can to fill in the gaps. They come up with some stock twists and turns, including an indication that Jonathan's messages may not actually come from the dead, but the about-to-die, but these zig-zags only serve to complicate things without ever making them more dramatically satisfying. There's an abortive relationship with a fellow EVP experimenter (Deborah Unger), a strained relationship between Jonathan and his son from a previous marriage, and even a late-developing hunt for a serial killer in White Noise, but it never really adds up to much.

Finally, the film breaks down completely in the climax, breaking all of the rules it had previously established during the first two acts. I hate hate hate when movies do this. I can suspend disbelief pretty far. I mean, I'm watching a movie about ghosts appearing on people's TV screens, which is pretty far-fetched to begin with. But when a movie sets up parameters and then proceeds to violate them, well it's cheating and it's cheap and it ruins the experience of watching the film.

I'm disappointed in White Noise not because I expected anything much from it, and certainly not because I feel EVP is a worthwhile subject for an entire horror film, but because it once again proves Michael Keaton can't get a break in Hollywood. What the hell is going on? This guy is talented, funny, and people genuinely like watching him, so why does he get saddled with shitkickers like this and Jack Frost and Desperate Measures? Haven't you people seen Beetlejuice? Did you know he improv'd almost all his dialogue in that movie? Keaton will next be seen in this summer's Lindsay Lohan vehicle (double chuckle...) Herbie: Fully Loaded. Oh, joy.