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Capone Receives THE SIGNAL!!
Capone inc Chicago here...
I once had a person, someone whose opinion on horror around the world I regard very highly, tell me about entire sub-genre of horror films in Japan was based solely on the idea of a kind of mass hypnosis. He said that for some reason the Japanese feared this more than anything else (well, this and pale-faced ghost children, apparently), and that films about mind control were very big in that country. I don't know if this is true, but when I see trailers like that for M. Night Shyamalan's THE HAPPENING or watch films like this week's THE SIGNAL, I begin to wonder if this paranoia has now extended to this side of the Pacific. The idea of mind control certainly isn't a new one in horror and sci-fi, but the idea of ordinary citizens with no particular violent tendencies suddenly turning into raging maniacs does seem to be making its way into our collective cinematic mindset.
More than any other film, THE SIGNAL reminds me of George Romero's THE CRAZIES, in which some seemingly harmless phenomenon (in this case, a strange television signal) sets people on random killing sprees. Only, in most cases, these maniacs aren't running around screaming with their eyes bulging out of their heads. In many cases, they appear to be aware and functioning, operating under some sort of twisted logic. The signal seems to have literally replaced their good thoughts with bad. They are delusional, and they respond to threatening delusions as if they were real.
It's almost worse than just snapping because you can actually reason with these people before they snap your neck. The film opens with a young couple, Ben and Mya (Justin Welborn and Anessa Ramsey), in bed just as the movie they are watching switches over the "the signal." It doesn't take us long to figure out that Mya is cheating on someone (turns out it's her husband) by sleeping with this man. She's not happy in her marriage, and Ben proposes that the two of them run off together.
The idea is more than tempting to her, but she still leaves. Meanwhile the husband, Lewis (AJ Bowen) is at home doing what he does best--drinking with his buddies, watching sports and getting more and more pissed that his wife isn't home. Shortly after she returns (and after a thorough grilling from Lewis), the signal takes its affect in the household, and all hell breaks loose in their apartment and in the entire building. There's a guy with hedge clippers running around who is particularly memorable.
A lot of unnecessary attention has been placed on the fact that THE SIGNAL has three writer-directors (David Bruckner, Dan Bush and Jacob Gentry), each of whom directed one of the three segments that make up this film. But other than a slightly less serious middle section, THE SIGNAL doesn't come across as something pieced together or disjointed.
And while it seems slightly silly that this movie took three people to direct, it doesn't wreck what turns out to be a fairly entertaining exercise in paranoia-fueled brutality. I lost track at the number of times characters took crushing blows to the head, and each one hurt me almost as much as it hurt them, I swear.
Much of the film follows both Lewis and Ben's search for Mya, who is in fact headed for the train station where Ben told her to meet him to run away. Naturally these two men meet face to face eventually and square off in an inspired bit of mind-fuckery involving the identities of the two.
What I wasn't as interested in is the aforementioned comedic bits in the film's second act, which focuses on a couple preparing for a New Year's Eve party. I'm sure many will find Scott Poythress' Clark character very funny, but I found him distracting and not particularly amusing. He even provides the film's only attempt at explaining what's going on with the signal, but I didn't find this information useful or interesting. He's goofball comic relief in a film that didn't need humor or relief from its jet-propelled plot.
THE SIGNAL's haunting final section more than makes up for this interruption in tone. I also liked the way the film's plot often doubled back on itself, filling in gaps in the plot at exactly the right moment when that information is needed.
Even with its flaws, THE SIGNAL is a strong horror effort that gives you hope that young filmmakers are out there still trying to make something a little different than run-of-the-mill slasher stuff. There are slightly loftier ideas at play here, but the film still remembers that what we came for are blood and boatloads of tension.
Capone
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but not this...
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FIRST.
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Horror movies are scarier the more ambiguous the title is. Just take "Norbit" for example...
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end transmission
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Nice
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Howard Dean's scream, played slowly and backwards and loop for 20 minutes. Yeaaaaargh!
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Sorry for the pimpery, but as a huge fan of the film, I was really excited to pitch and write this story: http://tinyurl.com/2dqn43
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not only have you picked a log-in name from and fuckin awfull movie..you have your facts wrong and are hating just to hate..grow up..if they really ripped of Stephen King..don't you think his pockets are deep enough to sue them? You are a moron.
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Why don't you leave this site and check in over at the IMDb message boards? There's plenty of trolling idiots over there talking shit about this very same topic. You'll feel much more at home.
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Just curious, and you don't have to answer this by any means, but what's your relationship to the film? I've seen you posting about it before. Is that David? Dan? Jacob?
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I am an actor and musician..have made countless shorts, commercials, and other projects with him and all the others...I'm not in this one, but hopefully will be in the next one that's just around the corner..details to come!
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The point is not when the movie is released. I saw it last summer at Fantasy Filmfest in Germany, so it was finished by then at least.
I loved it and it is a great example of a really cool low budget movie. I think they mentioned it cost only 35.000 USD. -
Considering that the short film they built this movie around (The Hap Hapgood Story) was made in 2003, I doubt they copied him. Besides after the halfway point, The Cell slowly became one of the worst books I have ever read.
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That's cool. Well keep up the support for it, man. I've been doing everything I can to spread the word, which includes occasionally plugging my article here and other places. I really geeked out over the chance to speak with David and Anessa. Journalistic objectivity was never really an option. He seems like a really cool guy, by the way. I especially liked his list of influences.
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...did NOT include "Cell."
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By admitting you haven't seen it. That's all I needed to know.
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who rails against a Michael Moore film without having even seen a frame of it. Fuck off.
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Feb 22, 2008 12:58:47 PM CST
no one asked me to come voice any support on any website..
by hitchcock'n'balz
I do it cause it's a great fuckin indie film from the scene Im a small part of in Atlanta...also, this film is in no way based on Hap Hapgood..although some of it is used in the movie, that was made as a 24 hour short film project, and I believe it won it's category (horror)...
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Unless I'm mistaken, a clip is played at the beginning of "The Signal" as a movie Ben and Anessa are watching, which is interrupted by the titular transmission. Is there any way to see "Hapgood"? It looks intriguing — that clip may as well have been been one of the faux-trailers used in "Grindhouse." It was oozing with style.
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The TV signal that makes people do stuff..... Also - wasn't there a movie called Impulse with Meg Tilly with a similar premise - I think chemical exposure instead of TV - but still....sounds lame. Impulse was pretty good BTW - 1984 - hot scene with Meg Tilly getting it on up against a fence with her sister's husband or something - check it out if you get a chance.
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AWESOME movie. The cool thing is that it was co-directed by three friends, and each one directed a section of the movie. For that reason, each third of the movie has a distinct feel and style. In other words, it's not just a great horror movie, but a cool cinematic experiment as well!
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in this and The Happening, I seriously doubt any studio will now touch (especially after The Mist died at the box office, although I see a strong DVD potential) King's The Cell.
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That is all. To each his own.
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and I can say, empirically, that they are completely distinct stories, both in content and overall tone. So what if they both involve some kind of transmission that makes people violent? The two stories are completely divergent from that point forward.
If you wrote the Signal off as a King copy, it would be like avoiding Saving Private Ryan because you'd seen The Guns of Navarrone (they both deal with WWII!). If you see the film I think you'll find that this is so.
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will soon be an entire sub-genre of horror, so to avoid this movie because it's a 'rip off' of Stephen King is dumb. 10 years from now there will probably be a half dozen 'signal drives them crazy' movies on the shelves that you'll inevitably end up seeing, so why not swallow your douchebaggery and just watch the damn movie.
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Yeah, this was an x-files episode with essentially the same premise. I watched the episode a few weeks ago.
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I saw this at the Chicago Film Fest a few month back and I thought it was amazing. Each director had his own section and the middle one is just so batshit crazy and both brutal and funny at the same time. I was really into this movie.
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Great beginning, re-hashed ending. Also derivative of "The Tommyknockers".
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I think your point is valid - you don't have to have read Stephen King's Cell to have a synopsis which breaks it down pretty much like 28 Days Later, which I remember thinking at the time I read that synopsis - and by the way David Cronenberg anyone? Little film called Videodrome, came out in 1983?
No?
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why dislike a film because it shares similar themes/elements with prior films. Everyone borrows from everyone else (just like in the music world), and there is little that is truly original in film these days(especially in the horror genere). Folks are getting pretty hung up on this Signal/Cell issue, and I don't get it. I can't see how a superficial similarity between the two diminishes either as an independent work of art.
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Our good old fashioned supernatural horror movies have been largely replaced by sterile, monotonous, ridiculous science-horror movies like The Signal (or any generic zombie movie save Dead Alive). I'm really tired of horror movies trying to pass half-baked, ridiculous scientific theories as an excuse for their tired horror concepts. It seems to be the pinnacle of a trend that started years ago... over-explaining your premise until there's no mystery or interest left. I don't know if it's because moviegoers get pissy when every detail hasn't been explained in excruciating Sesame-Street-level detail, or just because horror writers suck at creating a sense of horror. True horror is in the unknown, after all. Look at The Mist. It was perfect. Absofuckinglutely pitch-perfect (with the exception of one scene with some pretty lousy cg tentacles). They don't explain too much, just enough to create some important implications for the main characters. Like the first season of Lost. Anyway, I won't bother seeing The Signal. I can tell you right now that I won't buy it. If you do, good for you. I envy your ability to enjoy shitty movies. You're probably a happier person than I am.
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SUCKED! Saw it last night and thought the first third was great. Then it devolves into complete shit. It should have no problem finding its way onto my worst of the year list. That middle act is so desperately unfunny, it cripples the movie. The tonal shifts paralyze the tension. It really pissed me off because the beginning was a great set-up and I loved the introduction to the characters and I'm rooting for the lovers to get away and then just ---------- flatline. It's full of bullshit science and nutjob characters. It plays with time worse than Vantage Point. Just an absolute downhill mess after the first half-hour. If the three directors were in front of me I would slap two of them across the face for fucking up the third guy's movie. I was honestly ashamed to have AICN's quote on the fucking poster outside the theater. I cannot trash this movie hard enough. There's literally nothing worse than squandered potential and this movie was on the right track before doing a backflip off the fucking rails and turing into some comic social commentary. Wow, I want two hours of my life back.
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"The television screen is the retina of the mind's eye." "Long live the new flesh!" Er, yeah, I would have to say Videodrom beats these rather predictable set-ups, by a good quarter century. Of course, wasn't there an original Star Trek that covered this ground? Outer Limits maybe? Anyways, cell phones driving people crazy is funny 'cause it's true.
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Believe in the Jeff
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haters gonna hate. i cant understand anyone that calls them self a horror fan not liking this film. it was funny and gorey.
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