On a road trip, Nic and two friends are drawn to an isolated area by a computer genius. When everything suddenly goes dark, Nic regains consciousness - only to find himself in a waking nightmare.

From the trailer I expected The Signal to be a sort of Blair Witch take on an alien encounter with some retro, creep-tastic Hazmat encounters. While there were certainly elements of that in the film, the actual storyline exceeded my expectations, as did the philosophical undercurrent to the film. This is a movie that explores the dichotomy of human nature, specifically the war between logic and reason, and emotion. These characters are fighting themselves as much as they are extrinsic factors. Kudos to the Brenton Thwaites (an actor I'd never heard of before now) for keeping me emotionally and mentally engaged throughout the movie and holding his own against the filmic might of Laurence Fishburne.

In short, this felt a bit like Dark City meets Signs, and I really enjoyed the weird twists and turns in a narrative I fully expected to be formulaic and predictable.