By Nia Edwards-Behi
A blend of slasher and ghost story, Dark Signal is a competently made but uninspiring and frustrating film. It opens with a young woman being murdered by a serial killer. Elsewhere, strapped-for-cash mother Kate (Joanna Ignaczewska) joins her boyfriend, Nick, in an endeavour to steal back £40,000 he’s owed by a client. Kate is tasked with waiting in the car as getaway driver, but soon enough she realises things aren’t going to plan. Meanwhile, at a remote radio station, Laurie (Siwan Morris) and her producer Ben (Gareth David Lloyd) are about to start their final show for the station. Their special guest is a psychic, Carla (Cinzia Monreale), and while on air she believes she’s made contact with the dead. While sceptical Laurie butts heads with Ben and Carla, it soon becomes clear that their ghostly contact might just help them find out the truth about the serial killer terrorising the area.
The film certainly looks handsome enough, for the most part. Edward Evers-Swindell is confident with his direction, which only falls apart when a sense of action is required, particularly at the film’s climax. Evers-Swindell makes the most of the stunning North Walian landscape, although truth be told, soaring aerial shots of the region don’t really seem to otherwise befit the look or feel of the film. Gorgeous shots of brooding mountains are one thing, but the film doesn’t otherwise have a strong sense of place at all.*
Where the film suffers most is in the narrative and the script. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to blend two sub-genres of horror, but for the bulk of the film they’re entirely separate, and when the would-be slasher part of the story collides with the ghost story, it’s not satisfying at all. Quite a long time is spent without much really happening, and not much is done in this time to establish the characters – and none are especially likeable, so when the time comes that we need to care about them, any action lacks impact. Neither the ghost nor the killer make all that much sense, either, and you can certainly forget about an adequate sense of motivation. The film’s ghostly aspects are played out like a mid-00s remake of a J-Horror classic – that is to say, utterly unimaginatively – and the masked murderer doesn’t fare much better. Throw in a horribly consistent use of stingers to tell you when to jump, and the film is less terrifying and more irritating.
Dark Signal does manage to deliver a fairly interesting twist, but unfortunately it’s soon buried under the weight of tying up lots of other loose ends. A lot of ‘character stuff’ is only introduced late in the film, and I daresay the film would at least have been more compelling had these character backgrounds been drip-fed a little better throughout the entirety of the film’s runtime. It’s a shame, because there’s a good cast here – both Siwan Morris and Gareth David Lloyd (again) are wasted. Joanna Iganczewska fares even less well, and I’m not sure if her quite irritating performance is down to her under-developed character or her own acting skills. The film also, bafflingly, features Cinzia Monreale as, of course, a psychic, and fares much better with her character. She’s definitely a highlight of the film, and not just for cult recognition!
In fairness, there are a few narrative details which impress – the plot by a PR man to rob a footballer’s mansion is a wonderfully North East Walian touch, for example – so maybe there are glimmers of hope in the film. Overall though, Dark Signal’s a dud.
*Don’t even get me started on the official blurb that describes the film as taking place in ‘deep in the heart of the isolated Welsh valleys’. Yes, I know any mountain range has valleys, but the Welsh valleys are in the South, boyo, and this here film’s very much set in the North.
Dark Signal will be released to UK DVD and download (iTunes, Google, Amazon, PlayStation and B+K on Sky Store) on 30th May, from Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment.