There’s something inherently creepy about analogue technology: VHS tapes are prone to deterioration and decay in a way that pristine digital files rarely are. Broadcast Signal Intrusion is the latest picture, after The Ring, Censor and others, to posit the idea that a reel of magnetic tape can record something altogether more sinister than sound and image.
Harry Shum Jr makes heavy weather of the role of a video archivist who becomes obsessed with a series of pirate broadcasts – intrusions – which hijacked late-1980s television programmes. The intrusions themselves are horribly effective, chilling mechanised howls from grotesque humanoid robots with hollow, hooded eyes. But the rest of the picture – a muddle of loose ends and shapeless paranoia – fails to match the malevolent potency of these video nasties in miniature.
