Broadcast Signal Intrusion

 It is 1999, and James (Harry Shum Jr.) works at the archival section of some Chicago TV station. It's a lonely job: transferring tapes to CDs all evening, the only communication with another human (his supervisor, who works the other shift) handled via sticky notes. All this suits James just fine - he's still a mess after the disappearance of his wife Hanna four years prior.

 Predictably, he doesn't seem to have much of a personal life, either; his only activities seem to be repairing video equipment in his spare time and going to a support group for bereaved partners. So when he discovers the creepy titular Broadcast Signal Intrusion (BSI from now on) while transferring some news programme, he's got nothing better to do than to start poking around to see if he can find something out about it.

 A BSI is just what it sounds like; a pirate signal "highjacking" the daily programming, replacing whatever was on with home-made content. Primitive trolling. This one consists of a woman wearing a blank latex mask moving robotically, while electronic noises blare in the background. It's creepy enough, I guess - I thought it was trying too hard to be weird, but I suppose that makes it look authentic.

 James, who clearly needs a hobby, dives head-first into a series of rabbit holes, led on by (what else?) the internet - or rather, BBSs: in a cute detail, because the footage was originally released in the mid-90s, all the relevant information is still hosted on bulletin boards. 

 Morbid curiosity soon turns personal when he finds out a theory that links the intrusions (of which there are more than one) to missing women... and one of the intrusions took place the day after James's wife disappeared.

 And of course, weird stuff starts happening. James' place gets trashed. Some weird people contact him and some other weirdos follow him around. And all that's on top of the BSI footage itself, which keeps yielding additional information under close scrutiny. Soon James, with the help of a mysterious woman (Kelley Mack), hits the road, trying to track the mysterious TV pirate. It put me very much in mind of a 70s paranoid thriller (with some surreal elements); And sure enough, director Jacob Gentry mentions Alan J. Pakula as an inspiration.

 It's all really well handled, and the mystery and subsequent investigation is very engaging for a while. And therein lies a problem, because the film has an agenda, and it conflicts with the whole investigative aspect. I love the conclusion the film eventually arrives at, but it requires reframing what came before in a way that can be more than a little frustrating; It's a fairly big problem that I can't really go into without some major spoilers. Just be aware that you may need to be patient with some nonesense for a while.

 The director acquits himself nicely; this is a great-looking indie movie* with an excellent paranoid atmosphere courtesy of cinematographer Scott Thiele and an ominous soundtrack from Ben Lovett. I'm not a fan of the acting - Shum is a little too keen to let us know just how much pain his character is bottling up at all times - but he's not too bad otherwise.

 The script, by Phil Drinkwater and Tim Woodall is respectably willing to remain obtuse to the end, and its use of obsolete technology is pretty endearing - any movie that mentions phreaking ("with a ph-") is all right by me. There's some stilted dialog, and at least one instance the old technology fetish gets a little too on-the-nose (a video nerd exalts how much better Betamax was than VHS), but it's all pretty enjoyable if you're an old nerd, and it shouldn't be too off-putting for the rest of humanity.

 So it's another hard one to recommend. If you're willing to meet it in its own terms, though, and give it the benefit of doubt until it has its say, I think it's very much worth your time. I liked it a lot.

*: It even includes a pretty solidly shot fight -  of the sad/pathetic kind, though.