ViewGuide

Created Apr 06, 2009 09:05AM PST • Edited Apr 06, 2009 09:05AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   OK 2.5

   The similarities between The Signal and Stephen King’s Cell novel are among many problems with this ambitious but face-planting horror movie. As in the aforementioned book, violence is heavy from the moment an electronic signal strikes and begins turning people into crazed killing machines, the grue cranked up so much (clue: a face gets mercilessly smashed in) it might turn off the less-hardy gore hounds in attendance. Yet for all its fluorishes (the visuals are higher than one would anticipate from an independent flick), this brainchild of directorial trio David Bruckner, Jacob Dentry and Dan Bush has little to offer if you were expecting something on a level above shallow nut-horror. A surprising shortcoming from a film whose helmers each get the chance to flex their cinematic muscles in directing a 30-minute chapter each, though this unlikely method of filmmaking only gives the film a sense of unbalance, the excellent setting up chapter by Bruckner getting pissed away by Dentry’s Shaun of the Dead riff, itself followed up by Bush’s chapter that (not for the want of trying) fails to bring back seriousness to the film after the endless one-liners of the middle section. Still, there’s more emotional meat about the plot of The Signal than what you’d usually find in present-day horror, the love story between leads Mya (Anessa Ramsey) and Ben (Justin Welborn) consistent throughout, though — and while Ramsey and Welborn perform well — it’s A.J. Bowen who steals the show as the increasingly insane husband of the former, doing a good amount of killing before a face-off with Ben leads to the film’s grisliest moment. Sporadically unsettling, yes. Worthwhile, not.

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

5. Male Stars Very Good 3.5

6. Female Stars Very Good 3.5

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

8. Male Costars Very Good 3.5

10. Film

    Good 3.0

11. Direction Good 3.0

12. Play Good 3.0

13. Music OK 2.5

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 2.7

17. Sex Titillating 1.6

18. Violence Savage 4.0

19. Rudeness Salty 2.5

21. Reality

    Surreal 3.0

22. Circumstantial Surreal 3.0

23. Biological Surreal 3.0

24. Physical Surreal 3.0