“White Noise” is a fairly suspenseful, largely nongraphic suspense/horror film that does a good job of conjuring up a perpetually creepy mood. True, part of the credit goes to the drizzly Vancouver locations, but it’s nice to see nevertheless. At heart, this is a B-movie, full of large lapses in logic and several plot twists that came out of nowhere. I’m willing to forgive the film these flaws because it’s quite honest about its Saturday Afternoon Double Feature pedigree.
Michael Keaton’s performance is the greatest strength of the movie. He starts off as a married man who is perhaps a little too contented. (I suspect that his buddy-buddy relationship with his ex-wife in scattered scenes suggest his character has lots of repression issues.) Following his second wife’s death, Keaton’s character becomes more and more obsessed with the possibility of communicating with the dead via the static in videotapes, radio, and the like. Even if such communication were true, his constant obsession is definitely an unhealthy one.
I admired his performance in this film. Naysayers may tell you that he’s over-the-top but that’s exactly what this film needs to jerk itself out of its Made-for-TV mode.
In fact, I’d compare what he does in this film to what Vincent Price did for similar B-movies in the 1950s and 60s. He takes what could be a throwaway film and turns it into something to viewer can take seriously for 90 minutes. I came to this film expecting to hate it and yet I enjoyed it almost entirely because of Keaton’s talents.
