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
