Hey, have you ever seen…The Signal?

Jim:

I went to a party last year. Everybody started kissing each other, you know, at midnight. The tradition. How’d that start? Everyone starts kissing each other, and I had no one else to kiss, so I just as a joke kissed the dog. But then I realized when I got home that I made out with a dog for my New Years. It’s wrong.

If you had to come up with a double header that included Shaun of the Dead and one other film, and you had a theme, and that theme encompassed Shaun of the Dead, then it probably encompasses The Signal, and makes this the number two part of your double header.  Or the number one part, if Shaun of the Dead is going to be playing last.

So…if you liked Shaun of the Dead, you should see The Signal.  Get it?  Oooor…if you like Shaun, or Dead, or any X of the Y (like Lily of the Valley) then you should probably also see The Signal.  See The Signal.  See a theme?  See The Signal.  Moving on…

If Wikipedia can be believed – and why the hell not? – then this movie was made for about $50,000, which boggles my little head.  I see no budget shortage anywhere.  What I do see is a great little flick about a TV signal that drives a very large percentage of the population bugshit nuts and sets them about doing all kinds of horrible murderous things to one another.  This is a setting, not a plot point.  The film isn’t about the jihadist group that put out the signal, or the crazy right wing extremists that put out the signal.  The signal is just there, and that’s how it is, and we’re trying to deal with that now.

And I’ll be honest here: the film is directed by different directors in different acts, and it really sort of shows.  The three pieces of the movie can seem a bit disparate, they don’t completely flow into one another, but that doesn’t take away from the overall experience of the film.  If anything it just sort of leaves one wanting more, wishing that each one had had a full movie to work with, and wondering what it would have been if they had.  The first bit is visceral horror, the second is the sort of Shaun dry, odd comedy, and the third is the more dramatic of the three arcs.  Personally, part three felt the strongest as far as connection with the characters is concerned, but only because of the two that preceded it, so no cheating ahead.

If nothing else, go take a look at what $50,000 and a good idea can accomplish.  It’s the same formula as Clerks, in a wildly different style, and while it’s no Kevin Smith-type career launcher, The Signal is absolutely worth your time.

And yes, this is two weeks late, thanks for those of you that noticed, it warms the little heart.  Things got hectic, but I done took the LSAT, got life squared away a bit, and onwards we go.