The Signal (2008) Movie Review

The cerebral (cortex) horror film “The Signal” is proof that a production doesn’t need a big budget or stars to blow your mind. It needs an idea. Quite simply, the film is about a wonky signal that, one night, invades minds as well as the very nature and fidelity of reality. This is the second time I’ve seen “The Signal” and each time I’m hit with is the notion that everything I see in this perception-based thriller must be questioned. If this well tuned "Signal" must be reduced to a classification then let it be said that it is a bit of a zombie movie, a bit of a mass media satire, a bit of “rage” movie a la “28 Days Later” and a big ole riff on Steven King’s magnificent cellphone zombie novel titled “Cell.” In other words, it’s everything “Diary of the Dead” tries to be, minus the horror-reducing auteurist calculations.

Similar to “Diary of the Dead,” “The Signal” opens with a wink to the audience as low budget b-horror movie is interrupted by a strange, swirling signal that practically hypnotizes the audience too. This mystery signal of unknown origins has begun its deadly transmission and on the night to end all nights, humanity falls victim to the “panic, paranoia, rage, extreme suggestibility…” caused by all televisions and cell phones. Here is a horror film in which the media is the monster. Somehow, that feels right. This strange, penetrating signal is able to transmit, then transmutate our image obsessed civilization into a brainless horde. Through its characters, the film watches with fascination as mankind devolves into his primal id self, transforming, as the protagonist notes, “edicate into anarchy.”

Written and directed by David Bruckner, Dan Bush and Jacob Gentry (a threefer!), “The Signal” radiates with frenetic zest. Their transmission is anything but static. The film is told in chapters and, taking on different sections, each director adds a fresh new take on both new narrative events and events we’ve seen earlier, albeit from a different perspective. Pretty soon, each take on reality blurs the plot to the point of dizziness. All stories dance around a love triangle of survivors that may or may not be infected themselves. The basic grabber is that the girl (Robin Acker) everyone is after is trapped in some airport terminal as two men, one her crazy even before the signal boyfriend, and the other, the more sensitive “there for you” guy pal, do everything in their power to “get to her.” What will that accomplish in the grand scheme of things? Nothing but when the world’s gone to hell you got to do something to keep your mind occupied. From social evasions to gruesome beheadings, the lengths these men go to would be hilarious if it wasn’t so scary. It’s romantic and it’s a comedy but this is anything but a Matthew McConaughey rom-com. It’s a zom-com! The violence comes quick and comes nasty and randomness in which man bites man is where the absurd humor comes in.

The shifting point-of-view/point-askew shaky reality plot device gives the production the freedom to explore its concept with as much deadpan fun as dead seriousness. In that sense, “The Signal” is America’s answer to England’s “28 Days Later” with as many laughs as that country’s “Shaun of the Dead.” Bonus! And since I’m all about trying to spot “The Signal’s” many possible influences, the film intellectually plays out in the vein of David Cronenberg’s postmodern classic “Videodrone” in that it presents a thinly veiled diatribe against the relentless nature of mass media that, like the “infected” characters in this movie, invents new digitally inscribed realities rather than projecting them as they are. This challenging film seems to be saying that while we ALL may be infected by the signal, we just need to find a way to tune out the ubiquitous “noise” of pop culture. There’s no way to eradicate it, we just need to learn how to mediate it. “This Signal” is not just one of the best films to come out of fruitful slate of zombie films but one of the best of the year, period.