O Sinal

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

This bizarre little horror film that appears to have come out of nowhere seems, judging by it's style and appearance, to be a homage to the grainy 1970s horror flicks from the likes of Dario Argento or other such luminaries. Playing out in various acts (i.e. Act I: Transmission and such...) maybe the feeling isn't so much homage as one of trying to be clever and post ironic, but either way the film has the feeling of a particular type of grainy horror flick.

The driving force seems to be AJ Bowen's possessive husband, tracking his unfaithful spouse (Anessa Ramsey) after being driven mad by a twisted transmission in the tellys, leading to a whole succession of mad plot twists, until saviour (hopefully) arrives in the form of Justin Welborn's more rational bit on the side. There's plenty of blood splattered violence on display, some of it seriously pushing the boundaries, but all done with a noticeable and decent tongue in the cheek that balances it all out. The plot alone is complicated and, yes clever enough that at least two viewings would be a good idea. While this doesn't manage to be a classic of any kind, it more than makes for a rewarding enough horror flick. ***

Although different from anything in the recent past I've seen, the structure does work a little bit against the movie. It does in the sense, that you do get three short movies, instead of one whole. That itself wouldn't be bad, if the short movies would be more coherent with one another. But as it is, the movies have a different feel (by choice), but also different quality (not by choice of the makers and I don't mean the video quality).

The middle part is the "funniest", with the other two being more disturbing. But the "mood" change isn't really fitting into the whole thing. Not to mention, that some jokes are just plain stupid. A shame, because the overall thematic (technological horror with social commentary -> TV) is a good one. But for a first-time movie it's still pretty good/impressive.

The Signal is one story, broken into 3 specific acts. Each act is written and directed by a different person, which is neat, but it didn't quite work out. I enjoyed watching it, but I can't recommend it.

The idea is very cool, and the first two acts are solid. The first act feels like a tense horror film, which is what I expected. The second act was very funny and had a totally different tone, which was a cool change.

The third act, however, was a total mess. It honestly felt like the writer had a pretty tenuous grasp on what they wanted the story to be. They couldn't commit to what they wanted the signal to actually do, so some people were effected in a drastically different way than every other character had been previously.

Act 3 started fine, but quickly felt forced, and confusing in a non-mysterious way. Every character becomes an unreliable narrator, and you have no idea what's actually happening. That sounds cool, but it wasn't done well, so the entire ending feels like a chaotic mess. The answers you want aren't provided, and the story you get isn't good.

Additionally, Act 3 jumped the shark when it comes to over the top lighting. Expect every moment for the last 20+ minutes to be 90% bright, blinking lights, full of quick cuts to different bright, blinking lights and loud noises.

It's terrible to see a movie with a first act this good because I'm absolutely certain that if David Bruckner had been given his Georgian turn as writer-director of an entire feature you'd see a critical and commercial success in The Signal. As it is what we have is a brilliant third followed by a haphazard tailspin into mediocrity where the other filmmakers treat the source material like the film they ape at the beginning, a bad Horror movie. In Bruckner's hands this material becomes the best remake of The Crazies you'll ever see, not a zombie movie, and he does it from an objective standpoint. The other two try to probe, over explain, and choose antagonists for the audience to be afraid of when the real danger is absolutely every human being in Terminus; maybe the world. We almost had a Salo of the zombie subgenre (cruel social commentary that never backs down) but like all modern Horror it retreats back to it's comfort zone of nonsensical cliché. Too bad, this almost made Horror relevant again... Almost.

This movie could have been amazing. The premise was one that hasn't been done to death, the first section was exciting and full of tension... and then it becomes a mess.

This film is split into 3 for some unknown reason and unfortunately this not only breaks the tension and flow, it also changes the tone entirely. Had the film continued in the vein of the first segment, it would have been brilliant, but by the halfway point I was wishing for it to end.

The cast are good, the idea is great...unfortunately the execution tailed off into a disappointing mess that I no longer cared about and wanted to end. There is something incredibly sad about so much promise coming to nothing.