The Signal

Released: 2014

Director: William Eubank

Rated: PG-13

Stars: Brenton Thwaites, Olivia Cooke, Lawrence Fishburne, Beau Knapp

[Mainly Spoiler-free]

There is fresh and there is stale. A then there is a happy medium. That is where I believe The Signal falls. This 2014 film was directed by William Eubank, formally of Love (2011). He would go on to direct Underwater (2020), an underrated film in my opinion. The Signal stars Brenton Thwaites (Titans), Olivia Cooke (Ready Player One), Beau Knapp (The Nice Guys), and Lawrence Fishburne (Hannibal).

The Signal begins fairly straight forward: Nic (Thwaites) and his best friend Jonah (Knapp) are accompanying Nic’s girlfriend Haley (Cooke) to California via road trip. It seems that she is heading off to school for ‘a year’. Nic and his best friend are MIT students, so I assume highly intelligent, and are obsessing over a hack by the name of Nomad. Apparently Nomad hacked the MIT servers as well as their personal servers and almost got them expelled. So they are pissed.

It does not help that they are being taunted by Nomad via texts, emails that say things such as “R U Agitated?” and is hacking into their laptop cams. Nic and Jonah decide to try and track this hacker down and they succeed in getting a location by picking up a signal, which just happens to be on their way to dropping off Haley.

It is implied that Nic is dealing with a physically degrading illness that causes him to need the use of crutches. We get flashbacks of him as an avid runner and you see that this has affected him. In the midst of this, Nic feels that he needs to break up with Haley, to not hold her back, which is how he puts it. And she does not take it well.

That is the first act. Simple YA drama. Seen it before. But these MIT students decide they want to confront this Nomad and that is when this YA drama turns to a found footage horror movie and quickly into a science fiction thriller.

Haley (Cooke) and Nic (Thwaites)

After an incident where they find the signal Nic wakes up in a research facility and is questioned by Dr. Wallace Damon (Fishburne). Nic is told that that he made contact with an E.B.E., extraterrestrial biological entity and may be contagious. This is also the reason given why everyone at the facility is wearing hazmat suit. Dr. Damon says that he is trying to determine what happened to him. Over the course of his time there he is given a series of tests by Dr. Damon, which also gives you a glimpse into how intelligent Nic is. He becomes increasing agitated, regarding not having contact with the outside world, specifically his parents and lack of information about Jonah and Haley.

When Nic discovers a secret that the research facility is keeping from him, he begins a plan to escape. I Figured out one of the twists as soon as Dr. Damon was introduced, I must say. And it was laughable how simplistic it was.

Dr. Wallace Damon (Fishburne)

Was I a bit agitated? Yes. This movie had the opportunity to delve deeper into its plot and and explain what was going on.. Period, just what was going on?? With a $4 million dollar budget I was impressed with both the CGI and the practical effects, but the script did not feel entirely fleshed out. I think I was more irritated at the ending than I was agitated.

Interesting concept, not greatly executed. The Signal is available on Netflix.

In Retrospect ★★★☆☆