The reason why George A. Romero’s zombie movies work well as social satire is because the zombies are brainless. The drones in the malls of Romero’s Dawn of the Dead were mindless consumers (of arms, limbs, etc.). When people start turning into zombies in Shaun of the Dead, not much changed because the brainless zombies still apparently liked playing video games. The Signal doesn’t quite work as a satire; the twist being that this time the zombies aren’t stupid. They can think.
The film centers on a town called Terminus (which isn’t any town I’ve ever heard of). An unknown signal goes out to every TV, phone and radio. The results are somewhat chaotic; loved ones start turning on each other violently. The catch is that the zombies’ minds can still produce a degree of rational thought, so they still have the ability to act like they are normal. If someone violently kills in self defense, how are we to know if that person is truly sane? Sane or not, everyone’s brutal actions still contribute to the mayhem.
The film, directed by David Bruckner, Jacob Gentry and Dan Bush, is divided into three distinct chapters. The beginning and ending chapters are of the thriller genre. The middle chapter is comedy, and ends up working the best out of the three, because it explores the warped relationships between some of the major characters (Chad McKnight, AJ Bowen) that may or may not be violently crazy.
The story stays interesting when it explores the ambiguous natures of the characters, but it sags in the execution of both social satire and thrills. The gore is kept low-key, and the atmosphere never really dives into a horrific sense of dread. The city is supposed to be a metropolis of insane killers, so why don’t the heroes ever come by any angry mobs?
Despite the unevenness in pacing, this small, low budget horror film has a bit of charm. It’s not eloquent, and it isn’t scary, but the ambiguous natures of its characters are interesting to contemplate.
The film is rated R for brutal, bloody violence throughout, pervasive language and brief nudity.
