I'm on the wavelength of this new shocker, opening today, and blogged a bit about it and DIARY OF THE DEAD. You may consider tuning in.

I highly recommend it as well. Get thee to a screen-ery!

I really enjoyed THE SIGNAL when it played the Auckland International Film Festival last year. It's worth knowing going in, I think, that the film is directed in thirds by three different directors, each with a very different tonal focus.

Out of curiosity, how many other films have been done in this manner? It seems like the recent Asian film TRIANGLE might be similar, but other than that I've got nothing. (I'm not counting anthology films with non-overlapping characters.)

Here in Chico, we got the new Larry the Cable Guy movie... but didn't get The Signal or even Be Kind Rewind.

Our multiplex hates us.

I was impressed by this, much more so than CLOVERFIELD or DIARY OF THE DEAD. Some of the acting is a bit amateurish - particularly the guy with a mustache who turns up in the second part - but it tapes a potent vein of paranoia. The scariest thing about the film is that it's impossible to know whether people have been affected by the signal or they're just naturally aggressive. A running theme is the inability to really know oneself and judge one's own actions. I was also impressed by the atmospheric score.

Cable... Signal... Rewind...

There's a joke here, but I'm kinda tired.

Yeah... I know the feeling.

Same here. Not even DIARY OF THE DEAD :(.
I think it's time to move...

So that’s why I live In Manhattan.

I caught a showing of The Signal earlier Sunday afternoon. Bra. Vo. And I mean every syllable of that. As much as I loved many images, moments, and ideas in Romero’s Diary Of The Dead, The Signal is the real indie horror (or any horror) to praise in this first quarter of 2008.

Once The Signal gets past the Romero-esque concept of “It's us versus them, baby...and I ain't so sure about you”*, we are deep into the viewpoint of any person stuck deep in the middle of this crisis, deciding what is real/sane versus what is illusion/insanity. How do I best relate how brilliantly this film puts you in its skewed perspective? I mean, you think I’m just laying out a line of fan-boy bull? You think I got The Crazy? Don’t you? Don’t You??? Maybe I need to make you more open-minded… maybe this crowbar will help?

I hesitate to praise this film any further and contribute to some kind of anti-hype backlash when it reaches a larger exposure on DVD. See this film as soon as you can and get infected. Even the cheesiest element (which I won't spoil here) won me over by the end of the film. I wish these filmmakers much success.


* thanks, Craig. That was so cool.

. . . just want to add my praise to the positive remarks - the last low budget horror/science fiction film I can remember that impressed me this much was way back when I first saw Vincenzo Natali's CUBE (1998), although THE SIGNAL actually reminds me more of Cronenberg's SHIVERS/THE PARASITE MURDERS (1974), particuarly in the claustrophobic setting of the first act - however, I do not want to go too far in compairing this fabulous little film to other work as it actually seems to be a breath of fresh air in this current cinema world of endless remakes (we were treated to the trailer for PROM NIGHT before the show!!) . . .

Hmmm... two people were stabbed in a theater showing The Signal out in Orange County, CA. Read about it here. I guess I was lucky!

If this was a bigger release that the mainstream media was aware of, this incident probably would be played up for every ridiculous "violent movies make people kill" implication they could wrangle out of it. And, despite what the uncorrected typo would lead you to believe, there is no "fist scene" in the movie!

And if there had been some such scene, Bruno Kirby would have had nothing to do with it! :ph43r:

THE SIGNAL has already gone dead in NY theaters. I assume it's moved elsewhere, or is "off to DVD prep," as the DVD Journal used to say.