All gimmicky signs in 'Signal' point to 'debacle'

"The Signal" is a movie made in stages by three different directors, encouraged to make each segment their own.

The three-director gimmick here is intentional and experimental, but it's been accidentally applied in movies for years, as directors get fired and replaced during production, sometimes in succession.

There's even a word for it: debacle.

That's pretty much what we get with "The Signal" a botched sci-fi story about the horror that erupts when televisions suddenly start emitting signals that turn folks into maniacs (maybe we should have gone with Toshiba).

David Bruckner's first segment follows a girl from the apartment of her lover to the home of her husband. The boyfriend is a sensitive, goatee type, the husband a blue-collar brute (an exterminator, a sign of things to come).

We're meant to sympathize with the first man, who sweet-talks the girl by saying they should throw their TVs away and grow exotic flowers on their rooftop garden.

Full disclosure: I was hoping he'd be the first to go.

But he survives, and the movie becomes an odyssey of goatee guy's attempt to find his true love in the midst of a meltdown (eerily similar to the plot devices of "Cloverfield" and "Diary of the Dead").

Director Jacob Gentry takes over for segment two, where the movie runs into its biggest problem - he wants to make an over-the-top black comedy, but doesn't have the wit or style or minds behind "Sean of the Dead."

By the time director Dan Bush gets ahold of the project and attempts to re-establish "The Signal" as something grippingly bleak, it's too late, and we're worn down by the harsh changes in tone and generally grotesque content. *

Produced by Jacob Gentry, Alexander Motlagh, written and directed by David Bruckner, Jacob Gentry, Dan Bush, music by Ben Lovett, distributed by Magnolia Pictures.