The Signal

(2007) ***

Know why there's a picture of a stork at the top of this review? Because why not, with this movie?

The movie is in three segments and as Whirlygirl and JPX already argued, the first is by far the strongest. We follow Mya as she leaves her lover's place and heads back home to her husband. When she arrives at her apartment, things are off. People are pacing edgily up and down the hall. Arguments are starting to come to a boil. Her husband testily questions her on her whereabouts that night. He's got pals over -- one of them is casually swinging a baseball bat. It's little surprise when moments later, that bat is caving someone's head in. It's happening all over the building. Indeed, it's happening all over the city. Anyone who stops to watch their television for a few seconds, or turn on the radio, or make a phone call falls victim to it.

The film loses a ton of its momentum in Act II. This is when we learn that the signal stirs other things in us than anger.

It seems to be telling us something. It's not clear what it is, but when we watch it, our perspective becomes about whatever is our strongest persuasion -- our entire world becomes whatever we're thinking it is. It's the thing we want, or the thing we're afraid of, or the thing we're mad at. The more of the signal you watch, the more you unlock different parts of what it's saying. We see people commit acts of violence, we see people commit acts of altruism and the one thing they have in common is that they're all crazy -- too full on one side or another.


We've got a new set of characters to contend with -- a woman who really wants to throw a good New Years Eve party, her husband who is dead, one of their neighbors who...but what's the point, really? As soon as this movie stops being about a broadcast signal that makes people want to kill each other and starts being about whatever it feels like being about, we lose any obligation to care about any of it.

So much of it exists outside of rationality, it's hard to find any continuity -- it's just a playlist of different vibes and they're all bad, even the good ones. There are people who are angry, and people who are placid, and people who are either at a whim and we find reasons to question the logic of all of them.


I'm awarding it three stars based on the strength of the first act and because the remaining acts aren't exactly bad filmmaking. It's just really depressing how fast this one comes apart at the seams. If the whole movie were like act I, I'd have given it at least 4 stars. If the whole movie were like acts II and III, I wouldn't have reviewed it.