Susan Granger’s review of “The Signal” (Focus Features)
If you like weird sci-fi, William Eubank’s low-budget thriller should intrigue you. When it begins, three friends from M.I.T. are heading cross-country from Cambridge in an old Volvo. Nick (Brenton Thwaites) and Jonah (Beau Knapp) are driving Nick’s girl-friend Haley (Olivia Cooke) to California. She’ll only be transferring to Cal Tech for a year on a fellowship, but Nick’s deeply upset because he has a crippling degenerative disease and knows his disability will only progress further.
When they stop overnight at a motel, Nick and Jonah realize a mysterious hacker named Nomad has been tracking them. Nomad previously broke into MIT’s computers and caused network problems for both of them. So they decide to turn-the-tables and track Nomad. A GPS signal indicates he’s not far away so they all agree to a detour into the Nevada desert. Problem is: they arrive at Nomad’s location late at night. It appears to be an abandoned bunker that’s isolated and creepy – like out of the “Blair Witch Project.”
After blacking out, Nick wakes up, completely confused, but incarcerated underground in a secret government facility. Subjected to relentless questioning by Dr. Wallace Damon (Laurence Fishburne), he learns that he’s been exposed to an EBE – an extra-biological entity. An alien encounter. That’s why he’s in quarantine and everyone is wearing Hazmat suits. Determined to find his friends and escape to the surface, yet dazed by repetitive flashbacks to his earlier life as a cross-country runner, determined Nick encounters all sorts of obstacles, only to discover mysterious forces he’d never even imagined.
Scripted by Carlyle Eubank, David Frigerio and director William Eubank, its audio-visual effectiveness belies its simplicity, perhaps because Eubank started as a cinematographer and obviously worked closely with director of photography David Lanzenberg and editor Brian Berdan, making the most of Meghan C. Rogers’ production design. Propelling the narrative, Aussie Brenton Thwaites is an appealing leading man, adding “Maleficent,” “Oculus” and “The Giver” to his resume.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Signal” is a slyly stylish 6 – and strangely surreal.
