Movie #83 - White Noise

"The dead are trying to get a hold of you."

When I originally saw the trailer for this film, I was intrigued by the concept. Banking on the popularity of ghost hunting shows and the resurgence of belief in paranormal activity, White Noise portrays the ability to capture electronic voice phenomena or EVP's for short. Many believe these voices heard on recording devices or in this case, the white noise of television and radio are in fact voices from another realm or voices from the dead.

Keaton's character is desperately trying to search for a way to communicate with his dead wife and child in this film and his adventure exposes him to the extreme beliefs of EVP seekers. EVP's are sometimes seen as ways to communicate with the dead as you might have seen on silly shows such as Ghost Hunters or Paranormal State. More extreme believers are under the notion that this is in fact a way to bring people back from those realms where they may be residing or are trapped in.

This was the plot line in the many Poltergeist films of the 80's and is a common theme in a number of cheesy horror movies made to scare teenagers with impressionable minds. I honestly never thought Keaton would stoop low enough to make a film like this, but unfortunately, his movie resume has dwindled since his high end films such as the Batman franchise. In the end, if you go over his recent work - outside of some clever television cameos and voiceovers, Keaton hasn't done much since the late 90's and that includes bombs like Multiplicity or Jack Frost.

His body of work are a far cry from his rise to glory in Batman and Beetlejuice, but I truly believed Keaton's credibility could be salvaged with a strong thriller in White Noise... boy, was I wrong! The only saving grace in this film is the casting of Deborah Unger - however, she is poorly utilized and doesn't do enough to help this film in the end. If you like ghost hunting and the possibility that they might exist, this is still more enjoyable than the bad television shows available today - but not by much.