Briefly, because a couple of people have asked me about it, here’s my take on The Signal. I can understand why it’s being celebrated in some quarters: The first act is a top-notch horror movie dealing with the effects of a mysterious transmission that, apparently, takes over every broadcast and cable television channel serving Terminal City (heh), amplifying the violent tendencies inside ordinary people until they manifest in explosive fits of brutality. (Talk about rage zombies!) Shot in low-grade HD, the movie picks up the story thread of Mya Denton (Anessa Ramsey), who, as the movie begins, wakes up in bed with her boyfriend and then goes home to her husband. Mya is a pretty, horror-movie blonde — simultaneously tough and vulnerable — and as long as we watch the story unfold through her eyes, hubby Lewis Denton (A.J. Bowen) moving through layers of rage as he seethes over her infidelity, The Signal is absolutely dynamite. It’s like the lovechild of Cronenberg, Carpenter and Romero.
What I didn’t understand when I sat down to watch was that The Signal
is actually three movies by three different directors. So I was
frustrated and saddened by what seemed like a sudden and dramatic loss
of tonal control in the film’s flabby second act, which is as loose and
jokey as the first act is tense and riveting. A couple of the jokes are
pretty good ones (keep an eye out for a very unusual murder weapon) so
I was willing to endure the antics of a few random neighbors — the main
gag has to do with a New Year’s Eve party that hasn’t quite been
canceled due to apocalypse — even though all I really wanted to know
was the fate of poor Mya, now vanished from the narrative. She returns,
sort of, in the oppressively downbeat third act, which boasts even
grimier videography, nonlinear narrative gimmickry, and just about had
me on the floor snoring. It’s rare to see a movie go downhill this
fast.
The film’s trailer (above), which is a good précis on its sadly
squandered potential for awesomeness, draws almost exclusively on
scenes from the film’s first third. On the evidence, director David
Bruckner deserves the chance to do more of this. His colleagues Dan
Bush and Jacob Gentry have some ‘splainin to do. C+