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White Noise (2005 film)

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Revision as of 17:32, 22 March 2023 by 96.10.48.106 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) Not to be confused with White Noise (2022 film). 2005 Canadian film
White Noise
Theatrical release poster
Directed byGeoffrey Sax
Written byNiall Johnson
Produced byPaul Brooks
StarringMichael Keaton
Deborah Kara Unger
Chandra West
Ian McNeice
CinematographyChris Seager
Edited byNick Arthurs
Music byClaude Foisy
Production
companies		Gold Circle Films
White Noise UK Limited
Brightlight Pictures
Endgame Entertainment
CHUM Television
The Movie Network
Distributed byUniversal Pictures (United States)
TVA Films (Canada)
Entertainment Film Distributors (United Kingdom)
Release date
  • January 7, 2005 (2005-01-07)
Running time101 minutes
CountriesCanada
United Kingdom
United States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$10 million
Box office$91.2 million

White Noise is a 2005 supernatural horror thriller film directed by Geoffrey Sax and starring Michael Keaton. The title refers to electronic voice phenomena (EVP), where voices, which some believe to be from the "other side", can be heard on audio recordings.

The film did very well at the box office despite generally poor reviews from both critics and audiences. The commercial success of White Noise led Universal and other studios to realize that there was an untapped audience for horror films released in January, and began releasing higher-quality horror films during that period, usually dismissed as the winter dump months of the film calendar.

Plot

Jonathan Rivers is an architect living with his young son Mikey (from a previous relationship) and wife Anna, a successful author. Prior to the beginning of their work day, Anna reveals she is pregnant with their first child. That evening, however, Anna does not return home and Jonathan files a missing person report. Jonathan nevertheless holds onto hope that she is alive.

Eventually, he is contacted by Raymond Price, who lost his young son at age 12, and consequently became interested in electronic voice phenomena (EVP), the act of using white noise to receive messages from the dead. He says he has recorded messages from Anna through his equipment, an indication that Anna is dead. While Jonathan is initially dismissive and angered, he is later contacted by police, who have found Anna's car along with her drowned body, noting damage to her head and a broken arm. The police return Anna's cell phone to Jonathan, at which point Jonathan begins to receive white noise-ridden phone calls from Anna's cell, even as he holds it in his hands. It is then that he accepts Raymond's invitation to listen to recordings captured of Anna, speaking his name. During the recording, a chorus of loud, hostile voices begin to scream across Raymond's tape, hurling expletives. Raymond casually deletes them and assures Jonathan they are harmless. A woman named Sarah Tate, who also came to Raymond for his EVP work because she lost her fiancé, befriends Jonathan.

Jonathan later receives a phone call from Raymond, who has urgent news for Jonathan, but the call becomes filled with static and drops. Jonathan goes to Raymond's house and discovers him dead, crushed under his own EVP equipment and his house brutally ransacked. Jonathan becomes obsessed with trying to contact Anna himself, and after moving to a new home with Mikey, builds his own EVP setup. In order to focus on his mission to communicate with Anna, Mikey is left in the care of his biological mother, with whom Jonathan is on good terms. Jonathan begins to be followed by three demons attracted by his obsession with EVP, and finds that some of the messages he receives are from people who are not yet dead, but may soon be. Jonathan hears cries from a woman, along with a street name, and drives to the street to discover a car accident involving a woman and her infant. The woman begs Jonathan to save her baby, recreating the exact scene Jonathan was shown on his EVP. He is able to save the child, but the mother dies shortly after Jonathan arrives. At the woman's funeral, which Jonathan and Sarah both attend, Jonathan approaches the husband and tells him about what happened. The latter thanks Jonathan for saving his son but then demands to be left alone, heatedly telling Jonathan that he refuses to get involved with what his wife was doing. Afterwards, Jonathan sees images of another person, a missing woman named Mary Freeman, while working with his EVP devices. Jonathan notices a pattern that the woman in the accident and Mary Freeman were both receiving help from Raymond, which indicates they are being deliberately targeted based on their association with EVP. Sarah initially dismisses it as coincidence, until the two of them see an image of Sarah on the screen, crying and in pain.

In an effort to prevent Sarah from being harmed, they go to her apartment, where she takes sleeping pills and goes to bed. After Sarah is asleep, Jonathan hears disruption from her bedroom, and goes to discover Sarah standing on her balcony, possessed by the demons. She throws herself over, recreating the image seen on the EVP devices. She survives, but is paralyzed, and unable to further assist Jonathan. A police officer who responded to Jonathan's call becomes interested in how Jonathan has somehow been found at the scene of two different accidents in such a short amount of time, and lets Jonathan know he'll be stopping by his house to look around.

Jonathan later receives other images depicting an old abandoned factory in town, close to where Anna's car was found by police. Jonathan believes Anna is leading him to Mary Freeman, the missing local woman, and ventures there. Jonathan attempts to call the officer who responded to Sarah's accident to tip him about Mary's whereabouts, but loses his phone signal. The call is traced, and police are dispatched. In the factory, Jonathan finds a set of computers and electronic equipment on site. He discovers a construction worker from his company, who has been doing his own EVP work, is holding Mary captive, with restraints strapped to her head and arms. The worker reveals that he has been bringing victims to the factory to appease the demons within the EVP, including Anna, and Jonathan recalls Anna's head trauma and broken arm at the time of death. As the worker is about to slaughter Mary, Jonathan charges him, but before he can make it, the three demons emerge from the dark and torture Jonathan by breaking his arms and legs, causing him to fall to his death. The worker attempts to proceed with killing Mary, but the SWAT team arrives and shoots him. Jonathan's mangled body is discovered.

After Jonathan's funeral, Mikey's mother puts him in the car to leave, and Jonathan's voice can be heard on the car radio through static interference saying "I'm sorry, Mikey." Mikey recognizes the voice and smiles.

Sarah, at the graveside in a wheelchair, is menaced by odd noises. Right before the credits, the camera flashes to a TV where Jonathan and his wife are visible, reunited in the afterlife.

A closing intertitle states that one of twelve out of thousands of EVP messages is threatening.

Cast

Production

In May 2003, it was announced Michael Keaton was attached to star the film with principal photography slated to begin in August of that year.

Reception

White Noise was generally negatively received by critics, with a 7% rating at Rotten Tomatoes, with the site's consensus being "While there are some built-in scares, the movie is muddled and unsatisfying".

Sequel

A sequel titled White Noise: The Light was released in January 2007.

Legacy

White Noise's surprising box-office success for a movie released on the first weekend after New Year's Day, the start of the winter dump months and usually one of the worst weekends for new releases, led studios to reassess their releasing strategies for horror films. In 2013, Universal chairman Adam Fogelson said, "The first weekend in January used to be a non-starter for people; we had this little horror movie White Noise that did business, and that has become a place where movies that tend to operate."

If a horror film as poorly received as White Noise could nevertheless make a significant amount of money in January, studios realized, a quality film in that genre could do even better. The following year, an elaborate viral marketing campaign gave Paramount's found footage horror film Cloverfield a $40 million opening weekend, which remained the record for January until Ride Along in 2014. In 2012 Paramount beat White Noise's first-weekend success with The Devil Inside, which took in $35 million despite a strongly negative reaction from critics and audiences. "Ever since White Noise was a hit in 2005, that's what started it. If you look back at every first weekend, besides expanding titles, the only new release is usually one crappy horror movie," C. Robert Cargill of Ain't It Cool News told Hollywood.com in 2013.

See also

References

  1. "White Noise". Canadian Feature Film Database. Retrieved 13 September 2021.
  2. ^ "White Noise (2005)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
  3. "White Noise (2005) - Financial Information". The Numbers. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
  4. "Senator, Gold ink on pix". Variety. Retrieved December 13, 2021.
  5. Thompson, Anne (April 26, 2013). "CinemaCon Heavyweight Panel Debates Windows, Social Media, State of Industry". indieWIRE. Retrieved March 14, 2014.
  6. Salisbury, Brian (February 23, 2013). "Why Oscar Season is Hollywood's Bad Movie Dumping Ground". Hollywood.com. Retrieved March 14, 2014.

External links

Films directed by Geoffrey Sax
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