Found footage horror isn't for everyone — my husband, for example, gets dizzy and disoriented from the genre's frequent shaky camerawork and off-kilter sound design. It's not for everyone, but it is for me, so I jumped at the chance to watch and review Nathan Light's “The Harvest Broadcast,” a horror “documentary” about a mysterious broadcast signal interruption in 1970s Hutchinson and its spooky aftermath. I was not disappointed.

On Friday, October 15, 1971, the film's first segment explains, a locally made nature documentary called “Harvest” was set to air on Hutchinson's K-TV. Intended as slow, gentle programming for older viewers, “Harvest” would show the subtle and significant changes in Kansas's autumn landscape. What actually aired was something strange and unsettling, “like a psychedelic exploitation film,” as original viewer Susan Trevino (Kim Albertson) puts it. Not many people watched it, and it was never aired again. Over the years, rumors spread that the program's small audience had invited something sinister into their homes over the airwaves: KTV's broadcast engineer saw someone or something standing in his backyard staring at his house, for instance, and Susan Trevino was plagued by “hidden figures” that showed up in the background of photographs taken of her far from Kansas.

After building up the mystery in its first part via documentary-style “talking heads” and media excerpts, the second, longer segment of “The Harvest Broadcast” is the program itself, played from a VHS tape inherited by the filmmaker's son, and introduced by a 30-second countdown and a William Castle-like disclaimer absolving the production from “any superstition that may happen in the course of or following the showing.” 

The film itself is creepy and effective, run through analog filters that crunch up the sound and make the picture flicker and jump. In an initially idyllic, woodsy setting (Wichita’s College Hill Park!), a young woman pushes her toddler in a stroller. As she struggles to set the brake, the child wanders off the path. The camera follows him in the mother's POV, and suddenly there's a white-draped humanoid figure in the woods, motionless and silent for a static shot that seems to last forever — the camera looks away for a moment and the figure is gone, the drape abandoned on the ground. Bizarre ad bumpers play, and a litany of missing child reports. A storm rolls in. The words “Don't look into the eyes” appear onscreen, followed by a vague, shadowy face. The draped figure appears again and again, reflected into still water, the toddler standing at its feet.

“The Harvest Broadcast” has a few flaws: Light overindulges in the VHS artifacting, and the text of the captions and chyrons is awkward. But I loved that it has two major roles for older women, with Kim Albertson as Susan Trevino and Sharon Black as retired journalist Mandy Hodge. And, most importantly, it scared the dickens out of me! A fine example of its genre.

The Details

World premiere of "The Harvest Broadcast"
The film will screen at approximately 7:10 p.m. on Friday, June 19, 2026 at the Pix Community Center, 101 E. Main St. in Mulvane, Kansas

"The Harvest Broadcast" will screen as part of the "Grounded Spirits" program block. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.

The Doc Sunback Film Festival will continue on Saturday, June 20 with short film screenings from 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m., followed by a round-table discussion and awards ceremony. Find the schedule on the festival's website.

The festival is free, and donations are encouraged.

Anna Andersen co-hosts Your Favorite Bad Movie Podcast with their husband. They have three cats named Brains, Hamburger, and Twinkle.

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