The dead are trying to get a hold of us in "White Noise" and what they seem to be saying is don’t spend money on this movie.

This sadly disappointing supernatural thriller, which stars Michael Keaton, is designed to showcase a cult niche of paranormal activity known as Electronic Voice Phenomena, or EVP for short. A process by which the dead contact the living by leaving a variety of audio and visual messages which can be recorded electronically on either audio or video tape from sources that range from televisions to radios to cell phones and answering machines.

The movie starts with an authentic 1924 quote by noted inventor Thomas A. Edison concerning the possibility of constructing an apparatus which would facilitate communication with the dead, and it concludes with a rather dubious title card that solemnly announces that of the thousands of documented messages which have been received from the spirit world. One out of 14 is of a threatening nature.

What transpires between these points is a blandly written, awkwardly directed but sincerely performed motion picture that contains one good scare, a couple of chilling moments and maybe a half dozen examples of special effects-generated creepiness, most of which occur in the last twenty minutes.

"White Noise" certainly breaks no new ground nor produces any iconic moments of cinema like the forbidding static-filled television screen of the 1982 release "Poltergeist." The topic has surfaced previously on film in "Static," an intriguing 1985 art film starring Keith Gordon as the inventor of a machine that has an open line to Heaven but the notion itself can be traced back to a memorable "Twilight Zone" episode in which a fallen phone line landed on a grave.

Keaton is certainly no stranger to motion pictures dealing with exploring various aspects of the after-life. The Pennsylvania native, who was born Michael Douglas, achieved stardom as a wacky demon coaching the newly dead in the 1988 title role of "Beetlejuice" and ten years later played a loving family man reincarnated as a benevolent snowman in "Jack Frost."

He is now given the relatively thankless role of Jonathan Rivers, a happily married, successful architect whose beautiful best-selling novelist wife Anna (Chandra West) disappears the day she informs him he is about to become a father for the second time.

As written by Niall Johnson, you just know life is a little too perfect for Jonathan and Anna and portents of tragedy loom large on the horizon.

As the weeks pass, an understandably distraught Rivers is contacted by Raymond Price (Ian McNeice), a portly somber gentleman who claims Anna is dead but she has made contact from the other side.

After Anna’s body is discovered, the shaken widower seeks out Price, who has been diligently recording EVP messages and acting as an unpaid clearing house for the last 23 years, since the death of his own son.

On his first visit to Price, Jonathan encounters empathetic bookstore owner Sara Tate (the luminous indie favorite Deborah Kara Unger), who has made contact with her dead fiancée and is open to helping Jonathan in his personal quest for knowledge.

Hearing what he believes is the voice of his wife on an audio tape, Rivers soon becomes obsessed with recording hour upon hour of white noise from the radio and static from the television. He ships out his young son to his ex-wife, lets his job slide and concentrates on playing back his tapes in hopes of finding another message.

The movie makes a big point that communication with the dead can’t be done "live," as the taped voices and images only appear during playback. Exactly what is being said or seen is certainly open to interpretation.

Jonathan soon discovers that some members of the dead are indeed a rather chatty bunch and that his mentor Price was absolutely correct is stating "they can’t all be nice."

Having lost my own father just before Christmas, I had a certain trepidation in my reaction to seeing a film about establishing contact with the dead.

A film that had the potential to be absolutely terrifying, on so many levels ultimately ended up being murky, muddled and ineptly manipulated. Leaving this reviewer to prudently react to "White Noise" with a large audible hiss.