Review of The Signal (2007) by John M — 19 Jul 2008

The Signal is a movie that was hyped a lot when it appeared at Sundance (I believe) and actually made it to a few theaters around town here for a couple of weeks. It is out on DVD now and is worth a look.

The movie is about a signal that has interrupted all forms of media including phones, television, and radio. The signal basically drives everyone insane and people start killing each other. The premise is almost just like Stephen King's book Cell, however, instead of brainless almost primal zombies, these crazies retain most of their intelligence, only they are paranoid homicidal nutballs (which is actually quite frightening if you think about it).

The movie has another interesting sidebar, in that the movie was directed by three different people. What you get, is really three different short films, all using the same premise and actors and story line, but telling the narrative with three distinct voices.

While this idea is not new (Four Rooms), it has not been used all that often these days. The movie is broken up into three different sections. The first and second are excellent. The third drags the movie into confusion and ultimately sullies the other two sections.

The first section deals with the immediate aftermath of people watching the signal. It starts out with a man and woman who are having an affair. They awaken to find the TV on and broadcasting a weird signal.

They find the phone is too. The woman leaves to go home to her husband, and the lover is trying to convince her to run away with him. He makes an offer to meet him the next day at train Station 13 and leave her old life behind.

What we get then is a chilling decent into homicidal madness which is shocking and creepy. It takes place in an apartment building which makes it even more spooky and claustrophobic. The second part starts with the woman escaping with one of her husbands friends (hubby went nuts) and crashing her car.

She is trying to get to station 13. A man sees this an tries to help, but she leaves him as she can trust no one. We then start with two new characters, including the man who tried to help, who try and deal with the crazy situation while trying to retain some level of decorum and social grace (they were supposed to be having a party).

Unfortunately they both have a touch of the crazy. The woman's jealous and nutty husband enters the picture (he finds her car) and he definitely has the full on crazy. Yet he is also attempting to keep his social graces.

This segment is darkly humorous and tense because you never know when the veneer of social graces is going to crack and reveal the madness underneath. The third segment describes the attempt for the lover trying to get to station 13 to meet the woman, all the while being stalked by the jealous and nutty husband.

This should have been a great climax, but it end up confusing as we don't know if the lover is crazy, if the lover is the lover at all, or what really is going on. I admire the third filmmakers remarks in the special features that he wanted a movie end that people would interpret in their own way and discuss after the movie, except these discussions would be "what the hell just happened?" And the person answering would be saying "I have no idea.

The end really sucked. Let's go get some pizza." Overall, I liked this film but I cant give it a better grade because of the last segment. I will assign each third 3.33 points. I give the first two segments all the points, and the last one 0 points.

That takes us to 6.66/10. Oh by the way, the movie opens with part of a short film by the first director, it is low budget and shot on video and is very cheesy. I was worried that that is how the rest was shot, but don't worry, it is not.

It will change to better quality fairly quickly.