The Signal (2008)

The Signal is an American horror film written and directed by independent filmmakers David Bruckner, Dan Bush and Jacob Gentry. It is told in three parts, in which all telecommunication and audiovisual devices transmit only a mysterious signal turning people mad and activating murderous behaviour in many of those affected.

The film's three interconnected chapters ("transmissions") are presented in a nonlinear narrative. Each of them manifests elements of (besides the overall genre of psychological horror), respectively, splatter film, black comedy, and a post-apocalyptic love story. The Signal was met with a mixed but largely positive critical reception.

Synopsis

The film opens, showing that Mya is cheating on her husband Lewis with a man named Ben. Ben attempts to convince Mya to leave the city with him, but she remains noncommittal. As Mya exits, Ben turns the television on and watches a bizarre, psychedelic sequence of images. Mya begins to listen to a compact disc given to her by Ben, but she is menaced by men who are acting strangely in a parking garage. When she reaches her apartment building, she finds more people behaving strangely. Unknown to Mya, the Signal, a static-like interference that is coming through the television, radio and telephone amplifies each person's negative emotional traits, causing them to act irrationally and, in most cases, violently.

Actors