Movies
Why ‘The Signal’ Would Have Been a Massive Hit In the 1990’s
Thanks to M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense, and his rash of self-masturbatory films with twists, we’re all pre-conditioned to watch for the big reveals in a movie.
Nearly every person I know feels the need to exclaim, “I figured out the twist!,” at some specific point in a film. That’s great, asshole. Movies aren’t video games, and you aren’t supposed to ruin the experience for yourself making guesses all the way through the feature. I guess living in a world of immediacy has its faults, considering people can’t sit still for 90 fucking minutes.
Anyways, I finally caught William Eubank’s sci-fi thriller The Signal, which stars Laurence Fishburne, as well as Brenton Thwaites, Olivia Cooke, Beau Knapp, Lin Shaye, Robert Longstreet, and Jeffrey Grover.
It follows a group of college students are lured to the middle of the desert by a hacker.
The movie has been out long enough that you shouldn’t be angry if I slightly spoil the movie in revealing that there’s a huge twist – which is the point of this article.
I loved The Signal, and feel like it’s being under appreciated. Why? Because we’re always waiting for the damn twist. Signal easily would have been a blockbuster back in the 1990’s. It has such an insane finale that people would have been talking about it for weeks, and critics would be proclaiming its brilliance upon the world.
Obviously, the cat is out of the bag now, but I still hope to sway you to rent the sci-fi brain fuck this coming weekend and enjoy it for what it is.
Seen in already? Talk below…
Andrzej Żuławski’s 1981 psychological horror movie Possession is getting a remake from Smile writer/director Parker Finn, and Deadline reports that The Batman actor Paul Dano has joined the cast.
No word at this time on character details, though.
The original film starred Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill as a married couple in Cold War-era West Berlin whose relationship spirals into a supernatural nightmare. In Finn’s update, Margaret Qualley and Callum Turner will star as the turbulent couple in Finn’s Possession, and Adjani has officially given her blessing on Qualley’s casting.
Parker Finn is writing and directing the new take on Possession.
He’s also producing alongside Jonathan Fass via Bad Feeling, along with Roy Lee and Andrew Childs via Vertigo, and Robert Pattinson. Marc Bienstock is serving as exec producer.
Our own Brian Keiper celebrated Possession‘s 40th anniversary here on BD back in 2021, writing: “Few movies depict emotional turmoil as effectively and daringly as Andrzej Zulawksi’s Possession. It is a challenging and sometimes inscrutable film, both for the mind and the emotions. Zulawski struggles through a number of deep issues throughout the course of the film; issues that speak to some of humanity’s deepest pains and fears. In many ways it is about loss— loss of political ideals, loss of faith, and loss of innocence. But most of all, Possession is about the fear, pain, and anger that comes from the loss of a marriage.”
This will mark Dano’s first horror role. The actor previously appeared in sci-fi hits Looper and Okja.
Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill in Possession
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