FILM: White Noise

When his wife disappears and then turns up dead, Jonathan Rivers (Michael Keaton) is devastated. A man who claims he can hear and see the dead in the untuned static of televisions and radios offers to help him. The system of EVP – Electronic Voice Phenomenom – transmits the voices and images of the dead, but not all of them are friendly...


These days a horror film has to contend with the best spooky offerings from Asian cinema (and their American remakes). White Noise attempts to hold its own in terms of atmosphere, but inevitably it has to fall back on the kind of cheap shocks that slasher movies do much better.

Even though this is based on a 'real' phenomenon, there are obvious influences in previous films. For starters, Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist sees Carol Anne communicating through the static on the television. White Noise also has shades of The Omen, but things are never so derivative as to spoil the movie. Director Geoffrey Sax has a good visual eye and the juxtaposition of the dead white noise images on televisions with the computer screensaver of Jonathan River’s son shows his fall into obsession better than any dialogue could.

The one element of this movie that is completely misjudged is the end title track. The inappropriate soft-rock ballad kills the mood and completely destroys any feeling of suspense that had been built up.

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