Jonathan Rivers wife goes missing and after some time a man shows up, saying that his wife is dead and is trying to contact Jonathan from the other side. At first Jonathan doesn't believe what the man told him, but after getting a strange message on his answering machine from his wife, he decides to go look the man up. The man's working with EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) and helps Jonathan communicate with his dead wife. But after just two sessions of contact, the man who helped Jonathan out dies a mysterious death, which leads Jonathan to start dealing with EVP himself. He soon gets obsessed with the whole thing with EVP and drawn into a different world, a world that is far more dangerous then it may seem.
Michael Keaton stars as architect Jonathan Rivers who loses his wife but finds a way to contact her through the other side, using something called EVP. When starting to watch White Noise, I actually felt that it had a lot going for it. The story is interesting enough to keep the interest up and it moved forward in a good tempo, not to fast yet not too slow. It doesn't screw around either, but instead gets to the good stuff pretty quickly and manages to deliver some suspense as well.
But the further the movie went, I was actually starting to fear more and more about the actual ending as movies like this usually does not deliver all the way through. I'm sorry to say that I was right, as the ending is a huge let-down. It's too bad since it had a lot going for it at first, and at times you couldn't help but thinking about The Ring or even more so, Videodrome. Unfortunately this movie doesn't even come close to any of the two.
I wouldn't watch a movie because Michael Keaton's in it, but here he actually does a pretty good job. The very beginning of the movie is just too family friendly and way too nice so you kind need something to go wrong quickly to avoid feeling sick. It does, and Keaton's going through a big change and gets totally obsessed with the whole EVP thing. That's mainly the reason why I compared it to Videodrome, it's not similar but just the very obsession itself reminded me of that movie. Anyway, Keaton's delivering a good performance with his character that is totally believable.
Problem after a while is that what was interesting with White Noise was the paranormal science and what it had to offer. Unfortunately they don't stick with that concept all the way through, but instead it turns into some ridiculous type of ghost story that does a hell of a job ruining the ending.
This could've been so much better, and maybe they'll make up for it in White Noise 2, but I'm not getting my hopes up. What it has going for it is that it has an interesting story and manages to deliver some good suspense, and brings a bit of an eerie feeling at times. Good atmosphere and good acting, but you can't espace from the lousy ending and that's just too bad. Kinda worth watching, but can't really recommend it.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE:
MOVIE YEAR: 2005
DIRECTOR: Geoffrey Sax
WRITING CREDITS: Niall Johnson
GENRE: Horror, Drama, Sci-Fi
CAST: Michael Keaton, Chandra West, Ian McNeice
COUNTRY: USA, Canada, UK
RUNTIME: 101 min
RATING: 5/10
White Noise Website/IMDB Click here
White Noise Trailer Click here
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