White Noise

A supernatural-tinged thriller, White Noise is Michael Keaton's first starring role in several years and sees him playing architect Jonathan Rivers. Happily married with a son, Rivers' well-ordered world falls apart when his novelist wife Anna (Chandra West) is killed in dubious circumstances. A grieving Jonathan is contacted by the rather spooky Raymond Price (Ian McNeice), an expert in EVP - electronic voice phenomenon - a means of contacting the dead through ordinary electronic static. It seems that Price has located Anna on the other side and has a message for Jonathan.

So far, so interesting. But almost before White Noise can really find its feet as a supernatural drama, the screenplay, written by Niall Johnson, loses any sense of itself and shuffles into the realm of the truly ridiculous. After its promising enough opening, the picture appears content to come across as a low rent riff on the likes of Ringu, while maintaining a heavy dependence on the staple shocks of the horror genre. Don't bother.