THE SIGNAL is one of those unexpected sci-fi thrillers with twists and turns.  It starts out as a road trip as Jonah (Beau Knapp) and Nic (Brenton Twaites) go on a road trip to California to take Nic’s girlfriend Haley (Olivia Cooke) across the country to her college Caltech.    They take a detour to track down the mysterious hacker named Nomad (despite Haley saying it is a bad idea).  Nic suffers from a degenerative disorder which will eventually cause him to lose his ability to walk.   Their trip to find Nomad takes an unexpected twist as Nic finds himself in an underground facility interrogated by Dr. Damon (Lawrence Fishburne).    THE SIGNAL (not to be confused with the other recent sci-fi movie of the same name) is an unexpected twist on the alien abduction thriller and the aftermath of it.   I don’t want to reveal too much more because the surprises and twists are part of the fun of discovering THE SIGNAL.

 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Ten minutes of deleted, extended, and alternate scenes which are scenes cut for pacing even though one scenes is just a little bizarre for the structure of the film

 

BEHIND THE SIGNAL is a ten minute behind-the-scenes featurette which amounts to bts promo fluff

 

BRILLANT! Is a Laurence Fisburne blooper

 

Feature audio commentary with co-writer/ director William Eubank, co/writers/ producers Carlyle Eubank and David Frigerio reveals the improve nature of the first part of the film as they filmed road trip style with a small crew and the actors willing to do it.   THE SIGNAL was a film made on a small budget.

 

FINAL ANALYSIS: THE SIGNAL is a nice sci-fi thriller with some clever twists.   I hope they somehow make a sequel.

 

This review is ©9-26-2014 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com