The Signal might not have been made like any other horror movie but it falls victim to one of the major pitfalls of the genre - failure to deliver on the set-up. There have been literally hundreds of horror movies with great opening acts that then devolve into repetitive slasher nonsense or pure stupidity. The Signal doesn't fall that far off the rails, largely because the opening act is one of the best of the last few years and the goodwill from it is likely to carry you through to the end, but it still suffers from the horror law of diminishing returns. The Signal was filmed by three different writer/directors with three very different styles that (essentially) tell one continuous story about the end of the world. The first third is a brilliant thriller, the middle act is a black horror/comedy, and the third act is a bizarre hybrid that's closer to a horror/drama that has been tasked with trying to tie everything together.

In the first act, written and directed by David Bruckner, the audience is introduced to a love triangle - the other man Ben (the incredibly charismatic and movie-stealing Justin Welborn), the fair Mya (Anessa Ramsey), and the schlub of a husband Lewis (A.J. Bowen). After a night out with Ben, Mya returns home to find Lewis and his two friends struggling to get TV reception and they get nothing but a strange series of images and an annoying sound. There's something in that sound, and it's something that brings out the worst in people. After Lewis takes a bat to the head of one of his buddies, Mya realizes she's in serious trouble and it gets much worse outside her door. Can she reunite with Ben? Will he even be the man she knew?

As Mya tries to escape, neighbors are killing each other randomly, usually with the men as the aggressor. There are images in the first act - like a man taking a hedge clipper to a neighbor without even blinking an eye and a death on the rooftop - that are quite stunning. If the film had kept up the tension created by this first act, it could have been the best horror film in years. It's incredibly reminiscent of the '70s works of David Cronenberg (in films like Shivers) and George A. Romero (in films like The Crazies). It's not every day that you can compare something to the projects the masters produced and it makes the first twenty minutes of The Signal so good that they almost merit recommending the entire film.

It's when The Signal switches from nail-biting horror to Shaun of the Dead-style comedy that the air starts to come out of the tires. The viewpoint switches from new writer/director, Jacob Gentry, to the now-maniacal Lewis (although we don't 'rewind' like Vantage Point, we just switch leads). Lewis has gotten a severe case of the crazies and he essentially takes a couple of apartment dwellers hostage, killing the people who stop by for their New Year's Eve party. With gross humor and a tone that mistakes sadism for humor - when Lewis tortures a heroine with bug spray, it's hard to laugh through the wincing - all of the tension from the first act dissipates. It might have worked if the entire film had maintained a black comedy tone but this a trend in the genre that has become FAR too common with Behind the Mask, Fido, Black Sheep, Severance, and Hatchet last year alone (everyone seems to mistakenly think what Edgar Wright does is easy). By the end of the second act of The Signal, you'll have forgotten the fear created by the first one and be uncertain how to respond to the third.

The final act shifts the focus to Ben and the writing/directing duties to Dan Bush. Poor Mr. Bush has been tasked with trying to wrap up the end of the world and meld the styles of the first two directors. It's an assignment that even many a master would have fumbled. So I suppose it's faint praise to say that I didn't hate the final act of The Signal. That doesn't mean it makes any sense or adequately ties together the rest of the film, but I'm not sure anything could have and it does feature the best performance in the film from Mr. Welborn.

So, how do you ultimately review a movie with so many levels of quality and creativity from the genius of the first act to the misguided humor of the second act and the awkwardness of the third? The Signal clearly doesn't work as a complete film but it's such an ambitious idea - not praise you can usually use in a horror movie review. For many fans of the genre, the success of the first act and the ambition of the entire concept will be more than enough to make them fans of The Signal. Just try not to think about the movie that could have been.