The Signal - Interviews Part 2 of 2

The Signal is a movie that had a little something for everyone: violence, romance, dialogue scenes, action sequences, blood and ambiguity. The question is, what is the so-called signal of the title? Is it a freaky frequency sent from outer space? Is it the devil meddling with our cell phones, TV sets and radios? Could it be an as-yet unknown organism that just likes to watch people go crazy and kill one another with everything from blunt axes to noxious poisons?

When all's said and done, it really doesn't matter: The Signal delivers on all counts outlined above, and there's even a dash of comedy. (Admit it: you're laughing already.)

I recently had the opportunity to sit in a roomful of filing cabinets and funky costumes (don't ask) with the three directors of the movie, and two of its lead actors, A.J. Bowen and Scott Poythress. I asked them about how they expect audiences might take being confronted with three such distinct tonal shifts in a film that follows the same characters throughout the singularly scary situation.

David Bruckner, the director of the segment entitled Transmission One (the "horror" portion) says, "One of the major allowances [audiences should make] is, you've got a really absurd set of circumstances. If you're dealing with absurdity… Dr. Strangelove, for example, is tragic and hilarious simultaneously. I think that anytime you are dealing with an absurd set of circumstances, you have to allow for that and allow yourself to explore. And you get that thing with the audience too — they are scared and frightened, but are laughing at the same time. That's awesome."

I have to agree, mainly because I love the word awesome. "It seems so wrong," I say (rather awesomely, if I may say so). "I mean, it's like, 'Why am I laughing?' The dark comedy part of it is really so surreal. And then you almost have a sort of a 60s art film feel to it where like actors are changing, yet it's the same character, and you don't really know like who is who." I'm referring to Transmission Two, in which characters slip bonds, celebrate birthdays, hallucinate, and die horribly.

Jacob Gentry, the helmer of said gruesome dark comedy portion retorts, "Yeah, [an art film] a lot like Luis Buñuel."

More like Dawn of the Dead as directed by Jean-Luc Godard, but who am I to argue?  I ask Poythress what it was like to play within those absurd, yet scary moments, and whether it was easier as an actor, since the filmmakers and players are all longtime friends. Poythress replies that knowing the script was more key than actually knowing the people. "When you have those tense moments, the stakes are raised for certain characters. I mean, as an actor you just try to play those moments and try to create the friction. And so there are plenty of takes when I will be sitting there with our I'll be working with AJ. And we have tension going on and we just crack each other up. Which obviously we can't use. But we try to re-create that from the script."

Transmission Two springboards from Transmission One, shifting from white knuckles to tinfoil hats. Even though the characters are dissected the most in the second part, it's the opening that introduces them… and the mysterious brain-scattering signal. "A lot of the responsibility of Act 1 was building the universe that we trusted and that was firmly rooted in reality," explains Bruckner, "and then slowly watching that fall apart. There is subtle satire in Act 1 — and it is subtle intentionally — but it doesn't really come into play until the signal starts to take effect, until things start to fall apart. And that transition was something I really wanted people to feel.

"A lot of it was just logistically challenging. You know, making this small movie in Atlanta, using our own apartments [and] then having to convince viewers that this situation is really going down." We don't know if the signal is worldwide, or if it's only plaguing this one neighborhood. "Finding a creative way to build suspense and build this environment, so that you are completely immersed in it by the time we get to these next two chapters, was a challenge. But once it's set up, then you have conflict to play with."

Dan Bush, who directed Transmission Three (the "sci-fi" portion, and conclusion), explains how imperative it as that the staticky signal itself look just right. Not easy on a low-budget, independent film. "Well, the idea was to not have any digital effects," he says. "So for that section we wanted to do it old school like Lumière Brothers. How they could make movies and keep coming up with creative ways to deal with the actors, and sort of figuring out what is a cool way to do this or that?"

Bowen, as Louis (a devoted, if delusional, husband) stares into the evil wavelength at length. "There are some very disturbing images that make their way in," he says of what's seen on the television screens and monitors throughout the movie. "I'm not sure exactly how they got the sort of wobbly wavelength thing, but I know that inside of it, there are a whole lot of things packed in" — including, but not limited to, babies and fast food.

Bush adds, "I think people are inundated with digital effects, and there is a point at which it's easiest to just do something you could really bite into, and it's also just a fun creative way to tell a story."

Clark, the character played by Poythress, is not only the one who assembles the foil fedora, he is perhaps most in tune with the spooky signal. "I would probably describe him as kind of a conspiracy theorist, an uber-geek who happens to make his living as the superintendent of the little apartment building. So in his spare time he is down there trying to discover little conspiracy theories… or he's just watching Star Wars again!"

May The Signal be with you -- it opens in select theaters on Friday, February 23.

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