Really Good Movies! The one with TV zombies

 

 

Title: The Signal

What Year?: 2006 (copyright)/ 2008 (general US theatrical release)

Classification: Improbable Experiment

Rating: Underrated! (1/3)

 

As I write this, I’m looking at really going through with an ebook compiling my Revenant Review feature. I’m once again coming back to this feature to take care of loose ends I didn’t get to before. This time around, I have a movie that I considered very strongly for that feature but never felt satisfied calling a zombie film, even compared to admitted gray-area entries and oddities like An American Werewolf In London, The Grapes of Death and Tourist Trap. To me, it’s a definitive example of a “zombie adjacent” film, sharing many conceptual and thematic affinities with the genre without quite falling within it. Considered as a zombie movie, it is both one of the strangest and one of the best of the “modern” era. I present The Signal, a post-apocalyptic film about a TV broadcast that makes people crazy… except, there’s a good chance they think you’re one who's crazy, and how do you know they aren't right?

Our story begins with a woman watching TV with her lover, before hurrying home to her clearly suspicious husband. Meanwhile, a strange, constantly-shifting image starts appearing on TV screens and a range of other devices. Whoever watches the broadcast soon become erratic, distressed or openly violent, with a speed and degree that varies widely. As the odd apocalypse unfolds, the lady is forced to escape her apartment to get away from her husband, with the aid of a clearly unreliable survivor with enough of his marbles to improvise a gnarly mace. The ordeal leaves her wandering, zoned out to the music of a Walkman, while we double back to the building, where her husband has holed up with a mixed group hosted by a woman who still thinks they are gathered for a party. Finally, we come back to the boyfriend, apparently the only person to recover his sanity after being exposed to the signal, in a race to find the lady before her husband does!

The Signal was a 2007 independent horror film originally shown at the Sundance Film Festival. The film was written and directed by David Bruckner, Dan Bush and Jacob Gentry, with each having full control over a separate segment of the film. It was reportedly made in 13 days on a total budget of $50,000. The cast included Anessa Ramsey as the lady Mya and AJ Bowen of You’re Next as her husband Lewis, with Sahr Ngaujah as Rod. The film did not receive a general release until early 2008, to mixed to positive reviews. The film’s DVD release included three shorts based on the film’s scenario, all credited to Gentry. It is available on digital platforms.

For my experiences, this stands out for me as a “forgotten” movie that I personally can remember being fully aware of when it came out. As usual, it was a while before I saw it, but I don’t think any later than 2012 and maybe as early as 2010, which is almost immediate by my standards. I have also been almost sure I originally saw it on Netflix streaming, except I also remember seeing the movie with the shorts, which I have never found except on the DVD. (I’m going to go ahead and say that the experience is just not the same without them, especially “The Return”.) Beyond that, my strongest recollection is an early suspicion that this was an unofficial adaptation of Stephen King’s Cell. That will give as good a jumping-off point as any, as this is among other things a far better use of the ideas shared with the novel than the “real” movie that we eventually got.

Moving forward, the most noteworthy thing by far about this film in the zombie genre context is the degree to which it develops a point of view for its zombie analogs. This isn’t especially unique; there have been sympathetic “character” zombies before and since in films like Dead Heat, Shatter Dead and Warm Bodies, with the definitive example still being The Crazies. What is different is that most such films ease the viewer into accepting the “good” zombie (especially of the “character” variety) as in some way different from the rest, or else reveal they were “bad” all along (see Life After Beth). Few besides Romero really accepted the full implication that the “infected” characters who remain likeable and non-threatening (for the moment…) are still a part of the bigger problem that will have to be dealt with sooner or later. Grapes of Death was one; this film is another, perhaps even more effective. Here, most of those affected by the signal still envision themselves as the heroes who will save the day or at least them, and many freely admit that they will have to overcome or control their own derangement to do it. The problem is that far more often than not, they just end up becoming the villain of someone else’s story. Then there is the husband Lewis, who by absolutely all indications is simply acting out tendencies that have been bottled up all along.

On more detailed analysis, most of the arguable and inarguable problems with the film come from its necessarily hit-or-miss experimentation. Just how much it works for any given viewer is very likely to depend on which segment seems best or worst, which in turn is definitely open to mood as well as opinion. Judging from correspondences, many/ most favor the first part, which has the raw vitality of the best zombie movie openings. Less optimally, it is the one segment that is supposed to be focused on the lady, who in fact is already eclipsed by Rod, the one major character whose status is never resolved to my own satisfaction. To me, the movie hits its peak in the middle act, which I find reminiscent of Link, of all things. What it shares with that film (yeah, the killer monkey butler one) is the feel of a mannered Victorian murder mystery gone entirely awry. Here, we have Lewis devolving as already outlined, locked in with a hostess who has apparently only killed once in actual self-defense and an unexposed bystander who just tries to go with the flow. The dynamic quickly becomes malign positive feedback, to the point that the conformist helps dispatch one of the unfortunate few to intrude, while the other two get fuzzy on who’s who and indeed who’s alive. It’s telling and unfortunate that the least is usually said about the finale. It is by my own appraisal the weakest segment, enough to bring down the rating. On the other hand, it does have its own strengths. I find it especially intriguing that it’s only here that hallucinations of the actually impossible play a major part, conspicuously Rod’s return as a reanimated head. Whether or not it was planned, it’s a crossed boundary that was best saved for last, the final breakdown of reality as well as reason.

That leaves the “one scene”, and if it was all up to me, I would go with “The Return” short, which is the main reason I didn’t just buy this movie long ago. But since even the occasional deleted scenes I have featured were at least intended to be in the movie (see Lethal Weapon and for that matter Link), I’m going to go with a bit from the middle act, tellingly by the same collaborator who went back to do the shorts. Not long after our introduction to the principle characters, someone arrives insisting he’s come for the party. After a very tense debate whether to terminate him with prejudice, the two guys let him in. What follows is a surreal and oddly grating encounter I’m surprised I didn’t remember as I did several other specific moments from this part in particular. At face value, the new arrival is the most “normal” we see at any point in the proceedings. The increasingly obvious problem is that he acts far too normal to be both rational and aware of the actual situation. Still, one can allow that he may be trying to play it cool as the middle man already is… right up to the point when he starts talking openly and crudely about his chances of finding a lady friend once the other guests arrive. It’s a mindboggling moment even for this film, and like many of the best, it never is entirely explained.

In closing, all I have to add is that, while it could still find its way into certain plans for the Revenant Review, this is one that never quite belonged there. Whether it counts as a zombie movie need not have been a problem, but it still wasn’t the kind of movie I had set out to cover. That also puts it in a problematic position within the current feature. While it has started to get a reputation as a neglected or “forgotten” film, I find this no more warranted than discounting it as entirely bad.  From what I can both remember and reconstruct, its actual status is close to that of The Thing, which it already has plenty in common with it thematically: It was reasonably well-known when it was released; it was well-regarded by many critics if not most; and it has remained accessible up to the present day. If anything, it was never polarizing enough to attract the hostile comments The Thing sometimes did, and of course, it cost too little not to have made a profit for somebody. However, it still never risen to the status of an undisputed “classic”, either of the conventional or “cult” variety, despite already approaching the edge of the 10-20 year window in which such things usually happen if at all. In just a little more time, it might well become a ”forgotten” film, especially if someone manages to botch the digital rights. For now, I will praise it as what it is and always was, an offbeat gem that’s just a little more satisfying for staying that way. With that, I can rest.