Posted: 02/23/2008

The Signal

(2008)

by Matt Wedge

Television is really taking a beating lately as the scapegoat for a lot of society’s ills. Last week George Romero turned his zombies and his satirical sights on television—along with other forms of media—with Diary of the Dead. This week, we have The Signal, a semi-experimental indie from the writing-directing triumvirate of David Bruckner, Dan Bush and Jacob Gentry. This time around, television is most definitely the main target as it is the weapon used to unleash the signal of the title. The signal is a frequency that turns people that are exposed to it for long periods of time into crazed killers. When you consider how many people sit around watching TV all day that equals a lot of maniacs in the street hacking and slashing their way through the population.

The film is told in three “Transmissions.” In the first transmission, we are introduced to Mya (Anessa Ramsey), her lover Ben (Justin Welborn) and her husband Lewis (A.J. Bowen). Mya comes home from a tryst with Ben to find that Lewis has already been affected by the signal. Confused by the chaos and the brutal slayings going on around her, she makes her escape with one of Lewis’ seemingly unaltered friends. The second transmission follows Lewis as he searches for Mya. Unlike most of the people affected by the signal, Lewis seems to be struggling to hold on to his sanity as he crashes the disastrous preparations for a New Year’s Eve party in his search. The third transmission belongs to Ben as he races to reach Mya before Lewis can find her.

The gimmick of having each filmmaker write and direct a transmission is an unfortunate choice. While this move does lend freshness to the proceedings, it eventually leads to a schizophrenic feel that keeps the audience from buying all the way into the premise. The first transmission sets an impressive tone of impending doom before it pays off with a decidedly brutal and terrifying turn as the signal fully takes hold and the chaos escalates. Unfortunately, the film then screeches to a halt and devolves into a ridiculous sketch-comedy in the second transmission that is completely unsuccessful in its attempts to blend silly comedy with genuinely unpleasant violence. The third transmission is rather bland before finally picking up steam and coming to a surprisingly subtle and emotional conclusion that redeems most of the missteps that the film took to that point.

While the handing off of writing and directing duties can be chalked up as a semi-failed experiment, the excellent performances by the ensemble cast of unknowns keeps the film from flying completely off the rails. When you add in the fact that they were forced to carry over their characters and play different tones through the transmissions, their work can be considered nothing short of extraordinary. Bowen, in particular, has the most difficult task, keeping Lewis frightening at the same time that he plows through the farcical second transmission. Ramsey and Welborn also prove themselves to be up for everything thrown at them, maintaining sympathy for their characters as they struggle to keep their sanity while everyone around them has essentially become a monster. But it’s Scott Poythress as Clark who steals every scene he’s in. Introduced near the end of the first transmission, he actually gets a few laughs as the straight man in the disastrous second transmission. He eventually proves to be such an endearing presence on the screen that his fate in the third transmission becomes just as important to the audience as that of the three main characters introduced at the beginning of the film.

Even though the film does trip and fall, it’s worth seeing just for the fact that it’s a horror film with a brain and a modicum of craft put into its making. The tension and horror of the first transmission should help you slog through the weak comedy of the second transmission. And with an ending that packs an unexpected emotional punch, it’s worth traveling through the ups and downs to get there.

Matt Wedge is a writer and film critic in Chicago.

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