Gorefests not as easy to film as they look

The indie horror movie "The Signal" plays like a film-school experiment gone terribly wrong; it's certainly horrific, but in all the wrong ways. Three writer/directors (David Bruckner, Dan Bush and Jacob Gentry) each tell a third of the story, from a different perspective: In the city of Terminus, all communications have been jammed by a mysterious signal, and murderous zombies roam the streets. A guy kills people with garden shears; bloody corpses litter the hallways of the world's most depressing apartment building; holes get drilled in an unfortunate person's head; and somebody in a pink sweater is giving a party.

Quite possibly Bruckner, Bush and Gentry are talented filmmakers, but you wouldn't know it by watching this intentionally ratted-up movie, filled with deliberate skips, static, and melting-film effects. The actors are amateurish (though Anessa Ramsey's fierce work, as a young woman determined to survive this mysterious apocalypse, indicates that she's destined for something better); the black comedy heavy-handed; the gore repellent. In a world filled with zombie gorefests, "The Signal" distinguishes itself only by being more self-consciously complicated than most. Three heads, it appears, aren't necessarily better than one.

— Moira Macdonald, Seattle Times movie critic