The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Pushy reporter Frank Stewart (well played to the obnoxious hilt by Paul Fahrenkopf) and a team of paranormal experts check out the notorious Webber house to confirm if it's actually haunted during a live television broadcast on Halloween night in 1987.Director/co-writer Chris LaMartina not only nicely pegs a fun spooky ooga-booga Halloween atmosphere, but also further spices things up with amusing touches of inspired droll humor and ably crafts a strong mood of gradual mounting dread which culminates in a genuinely startling climax. The sound acting by the capable cast helps a lot, with especially commendable contributions from Nicolette le Faye as plucky producer Veronica Stanze, Leena Chamish as cheery newscaster Deborah Merritt, Richard Cutting as stuffed shirt anchorman Gavin Gordon, Brian St. August as fey occultist Dr. Louis Berger, Helenmarry Bell as kooky medium Claire Berger, Robert Long II as the earnest Father Joseph Matheson, and George Stover as hammy horror show host Dr. Bloodwrench. Best of all, this film astutely captures the actual look and feel of a corny small local TV station broadcast gleaned from a moldy old VHS tape print source complete with occasional wonky tracking issues and a hilarious slew of spot-on faux TV commercials. A worthy little fright flick.

As everyone else has mentioned, this has way too many 80s TV commercials.This film is about an hour and 20 mins in length. It's ALL simply watching a VHS tape from the 80s. In fact, the first 20 mins--TWENTY MINUTES!--is nothing but two newscasters chatting and stories of local news. And dozens of TV commercials.20 minutes of that. Yes, it's all done very well, but to what end? We get it after five minutes. We want story, a compelling reason to keep watching.Finally, 20 minutes into the film we get the film proper, the investigation into the haunted house. Nothing really happens...and every time something starts to happen, they cut to a commercial. Seriously. The "joke" we got an hour ago is STILL being told! Check the credits and there are about a dozen directors and writers. So they all just did a bunch of commercials, thought it was hysterical, kept them ALL in the film, and hope we'll watch. I did, you don't have to.

I grew up in a time when this would have actually been shown on television; they did an astounding job of making everything look and feel authentic. Every bit of the video looked like it could have come right out of the time period it was trying for. Bravo! Some of the parts weren't entirely accurate, but most of that was either for comedic effect, dramatic effect, or simply being able to be understood. Audio distortion on VHS recordings of the time might interfere with actually watching and enjoying the movie. I understand the choice made.You know what the best part of it was? The inanity. The mundane quality of it. The commercials were perfect. The news broadcasts were absolutely flawless. Everything was so down to earth and believable that it made the whole thing even more unsettling. It actually scared me a little. That never happens with horror these days.It was profoundly easy to believe in, and it never really presented anything that made it hard to swallow as an actual broadcast. I have to applaud the tremendous effort put into this production for all of the variety of things happening in it: commercials, the haunted house special, the news segments...that had to have taken a huge amount of work, and it really paid off.Great job! This production is really fantastic. I found it suspenseful, genuinely frightening, and one of the very few "retro" productions that actually manages to keep its period immersion consistent throughout. This would be great to have on during your Halloween party, but it's also enjoyable to watch on its own, especially with others who can appreciate the effort.

This is a film that in theory sounds really cool, and is actually executed in a well done way, but just doesn't work. It's the kind of thing that would work as a creepy pasta you would read online, but it doesn't have enough entertainment to be a movie. The biggest issue here is just how much horror we get. The movie is supposed to look like an old VHS tape that contains a recording of an old 80s/90s broadcast of a live haunted house investigation. They really nail the feeling of nostalgia when you watch this. It really feels like a real old tape. But the issue is that they focus too much on that. We get these really well done commercials that at first are funny just because of how they really seem like an 80s/90s commercial, but the movie keeps cutting to these commercials over and over. The joke really starts to pound you over the head to the point where it essentially ruins the film. I want to see the strange events occurring in the live broadcast, not these well done but unfunny commercials. We occasionally get somebody fast forwarding through the commercials which is funny to see, but I really feel like the movie needed to fast forward through the commercials a lot more. It certainly is more of a comedy than a horror. The horror aspect is okay, but it can be ruined by the comedy, which is a problem that I find happens very often with comedy/horror films. They are two genres that are EXTREMELY difficult to mix and turn out well, yet so many independent film makers try to do it with horrible results. Just because Evil Dead 2 did it, doesn't mean any movie can. This film kind of makes it work, but it's not perfect. I think the films ending gives it a bit more of a boost though, because it's kind of cool.In the end, I think the concept to this is great, and it does work as a film that is trying to show that old nostalgic VHS tape style, but it just isn't entertaining enough. Maybe it would work if you showed someone this and told them it was real just to see their reactions, but other than that, it kind of falls flat.