Found Footage Gem Feels Like A TV Broadcast You Were Never Supposed To See

By Robert Scucci
| Published 14 seconds ago

One of the best parts about growing up in the 80s and 90s is how localized television was, especially when it comes to news programs. One of the finest examples of how effective this format is for comedy and horror has got to be 2025’s Buffet Infinity, which is 99 straight minutes of local advertisements that eventually culminate in a horrific story about religious cults, a sentient restaurant of unknown origin that spawned from a sinkhole, and how the community subtly reacts to some sort of cosmic horror that’s in their own backyard, but nobody wants to address directly.

WNUF Halloween Special takes a far less absurdist approach than Buffet Infinity in the sense that it plays out like a piece of lost media involving a newscast gone wrong when paranormal interference ruins everybody’s Halloween.

The spirit remains the same, though, as the broadcast is jam-packed with fake commercials of varying audiovisual quality while lulling you into a sense of calm nostalgia as an oppressive amount of VHS hiss dominates the sound design. Given how much questionable, and downright terrible, found footage horror is out there, WNUF Halloween Special is an absolute treat because it’s not a bunch of scared kids in the woods trying to capitalize on the success of The Blair Witch Project.

Since we’re talking about a supposedly real piece of lost media in order to enjoy the show, the camerawork is surprisingly steady because we’re being sold the illusion that this was all documented by a trained camera crew, which makes the movie feel that much more authentic than its contemporaries.

A Straight-Faced Piece Of Alleged Lost Media

WNUF Halloween Special presents itself as a VHS recording of a local television broadcast that originally aired on Halloween night in 1987. The main event is reporter Frank Stewart (Paul Fahrenkopf) broadcasting live from the infamous Webber House, where Donald Webber murdered his parents 20 years earlier after allegedly receiving instructions from a demonic spirit board.

The house has remained vacant ever since, and stories of paranormal activity have turned it into a local legend. Frank, however, approaches the entire assignment with the dry enthusiasm of a man who seems mildly annoyed that he has to be there at all, cracking jokes with trick-or-treaters and treating the supposedly haunted house like another piece of disposable local-news holiday fluff.

Joining Frank are husband-and-wife paranormal investigators Dr. Louis Berger (Brian St. August) and Claire Berger (Helenmary Ball), a thinly veiled parody of Ed and Lorraine Warren who take the supernatural considerably more seriously than their host, who lowkey thinks they’re full of crap until he has a compelling reason to think otherwise. 

Claire quickly becomes convinced that something dangerous is inside the Webber House, while Frank remains skeptical and keeps the broadcast moving whenever the Bergers start getting worked up. Father Joseph Matheson (Robert Long II), a Catholic priest brought along in case an exorcism becomes necessary, isn’t particularly reassuring either, admitting that his experience with exorcism is mostly academic. Producer Veronica Stanze (Nicolette le Faye), meanwhile, remains outside coordinating the broadcast as Frank and his increasingly nervous group venture deeper into the house.

All of this is constantly interrupted by fake commercials, station promos, news segments, and other pieces of gloriously mundane late-’80s local television, sometimes even fast-forwarded by whoever supposedly recorded the tape. The commitment to the bit initially makes the Webber House investigation feel like an elaborate publicity stunt, complete with technical problems, questionable experts, and Frank’s increasingly strained attempts to keep things entertaining.

But when strange occurrences begin piling up, the Bergers become considerably less interested in staying inside, and the interruptions start feeling less like comic relief and more like temporary escapes from whatever is happening between commercial breaks. What begins as WNUF exploiting a local ghost story for Halloween ratings gradually turns into something genuinely unsettling, and Frank’s skepticism becomes harder to maintain once the broadcast starts slipping beyond anybody’s control.

We’ll Be Right Back After This Commercial Break

While I cannot praise Paul Fahrenkopf’s portrayal of Frank Stewart enough in WNUF Halloween Special, the film wouldn’t work as well as it does without co-anchors Gavin Gordon (Richard Cutting) and Deborah Merritt (Leanna Chamish), who are respectively dressed as a vampire and a witch back at the station while cracking wise with their spooky banter that they think is pushing the envelope, but remains incredibly PC because they’re broadcasting on live television.

With each cutaway as the story escalates, they transition from jovial and lighthearted to genuinely concerned about their journalists out in the field investigating the Webber House. Since this is show business, though, they keep their composure while everything falls apart behind the scenes.

The commercials, which play exactly how you’d expect from local television of this era, only heighten the ridiculousness of the entire ordeal everybody’s facing because between the horrifying moments that transpire at the Webber House, we get prerecorded political slam pieces, advertisements for dental practices, and the Shining Trapeze Strip Club. What makes the commercials so effective is that several of them were directed by different people, much like real commercials would be. Each advertisement has a distinct voice while similarly boasting the same late-80s local TV aesthetic.

While I’m sure there are plenty of moments where the illusion breaks since this was filmed in 2013, the effort put into making this look like a piece of lost media from 1987 cannot be overstated. This feels like a deep pull from Grandma’s VHS collection, and that’s where most of the charm comes from.

As of this writing, you can stream the WNUF Halloween Special on AMC+. It may still technically be streaming, but this is the closest you can get to VHS without actually hooking up an old VCR.

WNUF HALLOWEEN SPECIAL SCORE