After seeing 'Movie 43', a film with multiple directors and multiple writers, it reminded me of 'The Signal', another film with multiple directors and writers, albeit this one has three writers and directors, compared to 'Movie 43's seventeen writers and twelve directors. Also one had a budget of $50000, while the other one had a budget of $five million. Guess which one.
The cheaper one follows Maya (Anessa Ramsey) as she leaves her lover Ben (Justin Welborn, yes the guy from 'Dance of the Dead') to return to her husband Lewis (A.J. Bowen). However a mysterious signal is interfering with the phones and the television, which causes people to act...weird should I say. Mostly they go around murdering each other.
The film is split into three parts, or rather transmissions, with a different director for each part. What's intriguing is the way they do each part, the first part is in the form of your standard horror, the second part is black comedy, while the third part...is weird. Well, Wikipedia describes it as "post apocalyptic love story", but it's still weird.
The first part really does set the film up well. The chaos, the confusion, the violence, the paranoia, it generated a great...what's the word, distressing vibe to it, the fact that you really had no idea who to trust. The second part, I have to say is my favourite. The complete change of pace, between all three parts not just this one, was actually quite clever when you think about it, since the signal is supposed to make the irrational the norm, we're getting an insight to what is going through the characters, particularly Lewis', mind. And I did actually find the second part quite funny, mainly from the awkward scenes. The third part, is where I feel the film lets itself down, I do feel the last part is the weakest part of the film. Primarily it's because of the ending, or rather the climax before the ending, since it didn't really make much sense. Though upon looking on Wikipedia and reading the synopsis there, I actually found the interpretation on there made what happened in the film much clearer and, in fact, clever, it just wasn't portrayed well in the film. Then again for the most part it was from primarily from two people who had been exposed to the signal, but there are still points in it which don't make much sense.
The characters themselves, well. For the most part we do follow Lewis as the signal affects and drives him, but instead of us hoping he fails, we actually find him charming, funny, and pretty much the best character in the film. I suppose that's because the people we do root for, aren't that likable. Well, Maya is effectively responsible for Lewis going homicidal, since she cheats on him which he does suspect and starts to develop his rage (As anyone would upon learning that their wife/husband is cheating on them), which is in turn amplified by the signal. With that aside Maya is relatively a bland character, and when everyone's a murdering psychopath she thinks the best thing to do is put her headphones on. The film implies this blocks the signal from affecting her, but it's not like someone will grab her from behind oh wait that's exactly what happens!
Well in her defence Rod (Sahr Ngaujah) was hiding behind a door as well. Then again she is captured again later, don't know how. Rod is an okay character, he reacts how you'd expect him to react, the problem is he never returns to normal. He is constantly screaming. Ben though, Ben is actually a pretty decent character to follow, and Clarke (Scott Poythress) is also a fun character to watch.
I suppose the main problem is that the signal does affect people in different ways, I.E. it amplifies the negative. So apart from Ben and Maya (The latter I'm guessing is having her blandness amplified) are reacting in different ways; Lewis' anger, Clarke's paranoia, Rod's fear, Anna's (Cheri Christian) low self esteem. So your perspective of the characters, aren't actually of the true characters, and that's actually quite clever the way they did that, to throw so many different emotions into one setting.
And that brings us onto the acting, which from the previous point, is actually pretty good, to be able to portray one emotion and one emotion only. Justin Welborn does a great job at portraying Ben, while most of the supporting cast do well to portray whatever negative aspect they're being affected by. I do have to say, A.J. Bowen is the best actor in this film. He is a lot of fun to watch, he very easily managed to merge sanity and insanity perfectly, and it's pretty much because of the portrayal A.J. Bowen gives which makes you want him to succeed. Actually the scene involving Lewis talking to a hallucination of Ben is actually my favourite bit of the film.
So in the end, this is actually a pretty enjoyable movie to watch. The acting is decent, the story is well driven, the concept of the movie doesn't ruin it (Unlike 'Movie 43'), and we have some really good characters. And all on a budget which is about 1% or less of a Hollywood blockbuster. The only real problem with it is the third part which isn't explained well and can be a bit of a mess. Maybe if the production had more money and maybe stretch to the two hour mark to go into more depth, then it could have been a brilliant film. But for what it is, it is a fantastic indie film.
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