AM1200-Listening to back country radio used to be a comfort.

Anyone who has driven the country roads and backways of America has had the experience of flipping through the radio dials and hearing those voices permeating the atmosphere.  Even in the days post Telecom 96, unique voices sound off on the dial.  Besides, no matter where you go, when you are spinning through the frequencies, on FM and especially AM, you can get a public radio station broadcasting NPR.  You can get some country music.  And usually you can get some religious programming, often a ranting, podium thumping pastor going on about sin and hellfire.  When you are by yourself on the dark backroads, especially late at night, the image of sinners resting their hedonistic bones in the hands of an angry God doesn't comfort.  Of course, it isn't intended to be comfortable.  But little do those thundering theologians know that it is future horror story tellers they are inspiring.  Stephen King would be one.  He has used such vignettes in several of his stories, most notably "Children of the Corn".  Then...there is AM 1200. 

The story sets up Eric Lange, who apparently is a money handling type who has done something wrong and is now making his getaway.  He finds himself in the back roads of Montana, driving to exhaustion to put some distance between himself and whatever lays behind.  Late at night, he picks up a radio station, AM 1200, and apparently someone is sending out a distress call and wants help sent to the station.  And "coincidentally", Eric finds himself driving near the station.  The night is pitch black with little outdoor lighting and it makes things hard to see and super creepy.  As if the radio signal wasn't enough.  Eric eventually finds the station and a man handcuffed to a poll inside the station (John Billingsly).  Things get really weird at that point.

The unknown.  The step beyond the comfortable.  No good can come of this.  And the thought of a voice from the ether reaching you from the invisible, radio alone, though we tell ourselves we have categorized and have it pretty well figured out...the mysterious voices from the dark always serve to draw and fascinate.  But what if, at the end of the message lies...

...that would be telling.


Great film.  See it.