The Signal

The Signal proves once again budget restraints prove no barrier to ingenuity: this scruffy, rough-around-the-edges horror film has a strong central idea and a habit of jolting you with real shocks. Something in TV and radio transmissions is getting into the brains of ordinary people and turning them into homicidal maniacs--something other than the usual homicide-inducing stuff, that is. (Incidentally, this movie was shot before the arrival of Stephen King's novel Cell, which has a similar idea.) We learn the concept in a nerve-slicing opening act, as a young woman (Anessa Ramsey) leaves her extramarital fling (Justin Welborn) to tell her husband she's splitting. Unfortunately, this is the moment a mysterious signal has infiltrated TV transmissions and cell phones, turning most of humanity, or at least the people living in the city of Terminus, into murderous savages. Serves them right for living in a city called Terminus. Why some people get "the Crazy" and some people don't is one of the problems with the film--horror movies generally rely in certain rules to carry them through--although the biggest issue viewers might have is the hodgepodgey style. Three Atlanta-based directors, David Bruckner, Jacob Gentry, and Dan Bush, helmed the three distinct sections of the movie; thus the exciting opening is followed by a jarringly comic second act, and wrapped by a somewhat bleak finale. There's enough invention here to justify the film for genre buffs, despite the nagging feeling that it doesn't quite hold together. --Robert Horton