DVD Review: Now I Know Why 'The Signal' Made Only $251,150

35 good minutes out of 105 is not a good sign

By: Brad Brevet
Published: Monday, June 16th 2008 at 4:26 PM

In my "On DVD Today" article last week I wondered how exactly Magnolia's The Signal could have possibly made only $251,150 at the box-office. I had seen the trailer and it looked pretty good. A film about some strange signal sent through television screens and other various electronic devices that causes people to go crazy and start killing other people out of what appears to be simple irrationality. I can dig it. On top of that, it was rated R and had one guy that thought he was Ryan Reynolds, another that could be Paul Bettany and a girl that reminded me of someone but I can't quite place my finger on it, but Cheri Christian, who plays Anna, certainly reminds me of Minnie Driver. None of this really matters, I just thought I would point it out.

The Signal actually is an interesting film… at first, but it goes way, way, way wrong. The movie is broken up into three parts, and while all three build upon the one before it, none of them actually seem to be telling the same movie. This film can't figure out if it is a horror, drama, dark comedy, mystery, thriller, etc. This movie is all over the place and while that can work in some instances it falls all kinds of apart here.

I bet if you browse around reviews of this flick (sorry, I was too lazy to do so) you will see several that say it has a fantastic first act, but the second and third are no good. That couldn't be truer. The first act actually sets up everything the trailers promised. The first act would have made a killer Masters of Horror segment. It would have left things up in the air, but sometimes that isn't all that bad.

Then we move to act two. [ ... ]

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