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Tuesday, February 18, 2025

SIFF Movie Review: The Signal

The Signal will have two showing during the Seattle International Film Festival.
The Signal will have two showing during the Seattle International Film Festival.

A Lesson For Why You Shouldn’t Hunt Down Hackers

 By Kim Bennett

The Seattle Medium

The Signal is a sci-fi movie about a college road trip gone terribly wrong. It’s the story of an innocent drive across the Nevada desert turned hacker hunt, turned extraterrestrial encounter. Three MIT students, Nic, Jonah, and Hailey, set out to drive Hailey, who is transferring to CalTech, to her new school.  In the process, Nic and Jonah, both hackers in their own rights, decide to pursue an apparently superior hacker named Nomad who has been pulling their strings.  What unfolds is literally out of this world.

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 The film at times feels like a horror flick with POV camera work and a little like E.T. with mysterious men in hazmat suits holding lost kids hostage in sterile surroundings. It’s not ever clear what’s going on, but you know it’s nothing good.

 Then enter Dr. Wallace Damon, lead scientist played in a cold, calculated, and at times humorous way by Lawrence Fishburne from The Matrix. Dr. Damon, is the always calm and controlled interrogator, asking questions as he studies Nic, his subject. Fishburne’s cool delivery of his lines reminded me of Morpheus from The Matrix, making Dr. Damon somehow likable, even drawing some laughs from the audience.

 I don’t want to spoil it for you because the movie hinges on mystery and the unknown. But I will say, it felt like a mix of a few different films with scenes reminiscent of District 9, The Matrix, Blair Witch Project, and several other sci-fi and horror flicks.

 The Signal is an interesting take on the road-trip-from-hell story line. It loses some of its momentum, but has the potential to blow your mind in parts.  There are some beautiful visuals of car crashes and slow motion action that are stunning. Overall, it’s an entertaining film and a different look at parallel universes, alternate realities, and all things alien.

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 The Signal was featured during the 2014 Seattle International Film Festival. It started playing nationwide and locally on June 13, 2014.

 

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