Normally, there are several reliable warning signs to look out for to tell whether a particular science-fiction film deserves to be taken seriously. One is whether or not it knows its stuff when it talks about hacking computers. The Signal passes this test. Another is how closely the protagonist hews to the Hollywood action hero stereotype. Here Brendon Thwaites plays MIT student Nic Eastman who has muscular dystrophy. He looks dorky enough to just about pass muster and fallible enough on his crutches to drop the coffee he has just bought.

A final bar to pass might be the quality of the cinematography. In one early scene, we see Eastman, presumably some time before his disease progressed enough to hamper his locomotion so severely, jog amidst scenes of nature. The canopy of leaves that frame his path is shocking in its vividness, each leaf seeming to appear as distinct as a crystal. This is certainly a director that doesn’t lack for technical ability. Even the story seems intriguing. Three students are travelling cross-country and decide to make a side trip when they seem to have located a hacker who has been harassing them. There is both mystery and scope for interesting character development.

But then the movie makes a jarring turn and you suddenly find yourself in a found footage movie. So you roll with it for a while but then when the protagonist wakes up, it switches genres again. And this keeps happening for the rest of the movie! In fact, probably the best thing that can be said about this is that you honestly never know what to expect next. Unfortunately the shifts are so abrupt and the audience gets so few clues about what is really going on that you just stop caring. It doesn’t help that the director stops caring about character development too once we get into Twilight Zone territory. Eastman’s girlfriend, who seemed kind of interesting during the road trip, basically spends the whole time asleep.

One of the reasons why I originally put this on my watch list was that it is one of the recent string of low-budget science-fiction movies and I’ve had good experiences with them. But rather than trying to actually explore novel ideas, director William Eubank seems more interested in replicating the flashy scenes of more mainstream movies on a modest budget. Never mind how insubstantial the essence of the story is, the way it shifts from genre to genre reveals how he is furiously stealing what he thinks are the best bits of better movies like Chronicle, Dark City, District 9 and The Blair Witch Project.

The Signal isn’t a film that is completely without merit. It does have its share of visually stunning scenes. But its discordant tone, uninteresting characters and lack of any real originality make it completely dismissible. Save your time for something better.