A surprise awaits three college students who attempt to track down a hacker in the sci-fi thriller film The Signal.
This is the first film I've seen from director William Eubank, who also co-wrote the screenplay with his brother Carlyle Eubank and David Frigerio. There was a lot of promise shown in his direction and writing that I would be willing to check out his other work, even if I feel in this case it amounted to lost potential.
For the positive side of things, the premise had me intrigued and I enjoyed all the build-up to the students tracking down the location where the hacker was doing their work. From there the story takes an interesting turn as the students end up in a facility and information is slowly revealed to them about their situation.
I certainly appreciated the story not spoon-feeding you details about what exactly is going on, as it leaves a certain level of ambiguity that left me wanting to carry on watching. Eubank's direction is especially assured around the facility as he establishes its geography precisely.
However, the narrative really plummets in the last 30 minutes once the characters leave the facility, as the intrigue that kept me invested completely dropped off. The story unfortunately becomes incessantly dull and made me appreciate it a lot less.
It doesn't leave you with many satisfying answers with regards to what has occurred. There is a semi-decent reveal right at the end, even if if followed another reveal that was far more obvious.
My overall summary is that there was a great idea for a story here that didn't get executed in the best way possible.
On a filmmaking level this is really great for the incredibly small budget they had at their disposal, even if slow-motion was utilised a few too many times. The visual effects especially were surprisingly superb, whilst the experimental score from Nima Fakhrara was pleasing to the ears.
In terms of performances, Brenton Thwaites, Olivia Cooke and Beau Knapp were decent and carried the film well. It's unfortunate to me that Cooke's character Haley was rather a blank slate and kind of pointless in the overall story, but I understand that the main journey was for Nic (Thwaites' character) to grow.
Final Verdict
There's a lot to admire here in terms of the filmmaking and early part of the story. However, due to the last 30 minutes I have to put it down as a good idea with so-so execution.
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