Signal One sends first contact to a billionaire’s island (scifi film trailer).
Signal One is the sort of science fiction film that begins with a question humanity has been asking since the first cave-person stared up at the stars and wondered whether the twinkly bits were gods, campfires, or unpaid electricity bills from another dimension. Are we alone in the universe? And, more importantly, if we are not, why is the answer always discovered by someone rich enough to own a private Caribbean island?
Written and directed by Jonathan Sobol, Signal One stars Isabelle Fuhrman as Annika, a rising computer scientist who is invited by a tech billionaire to investigate evidence of extraterrestrial matter on Earth. This is already a red flag large enough to be seen from orbit. If a billionaire invites you to a remote facility to study alien material, one should pack lightly, update one’s will, and politely decline any welcome drink that glows.
The cast also includes Dennis Quaid, David Thewlis, Josh Hutcherson, Kiera Allen and Raoul Bhaneja, which gives the whole affair the pleasant air of a mid-budget sci-fi thriller that has found several excellent actors, locked them in a tropical nightmare lab, and then shaken the plot until something with too many limbs falls out.
The trailer suggests that Signal One is playing in the noble tradition of first-contact stories where humanity pokes the cosmic bear with a very expensive stick, then looks surprised when the bear replies. There is a machine, a signal, a scientific breakthrough, and, judging by the general atmosphere, the dawning suspicion that Earth’s invite to the galactic neighbourhood barbecue may have been sent by accident.
There is something nicely old-school about this set-up. A remote island. A secret facility. A brilliant scientist. An eccentric tech overlord. Unidentified extraterrestrial material. A team of specialists who should, by all sensible rules of fiction, immediately leave. It has the pleasing architecture of a story where every locked door is hiding either a revelation, a corpse, or a PowerPoint deck explaining why the ethics committee was “streamlined”.
Isabelle Fuhrman brings the central scientist role, while Dennis Quaid and David Thewlis add the sort of weathered authority that makes even a daft sci-fi premise feel as though it may have a classified file in a dusty government cabinet somewhere. Josh Hutcherson, meanwhile, continues his fine tradition of finding himself adjacent to systems that are almost certainly not good for human beings.
Here at SFcrowsnest, we retain a fondness for science fiction that begins with wonder and then quietly bolts the doors. Signal One looks to be less about shiny aliens wandering down a ramp to offer us universal harmony, and more about the awful moment when the universe picks up the phone and humanity realises it has been leaving voicemails for something that bites.
The film’s title is a good one, too. Signal One has that crisp, ominous flavour of a government folder, a military protocol, or the first thing someone says before all the lights go red and a technician spills coffee into the apocalypse panel. It is far more encouraging than Signal Seven, admittedly, but still not something you want announced over the tannoy while standing next to alien matter in a sealed laboratory.
The trailer sells the film as a compact, ominous sci-fi thriller with enough cosmic uncertainty to make SETI unplug the kettle and go for a walk. Do they come in peace? Possibly. Do they come with paperwork, consent forms, and an understanding of human spinal integrity? The trailer is less reassuring on that point.
Signal One is available on Digital HD and DVD in the UK from 15 June. Watch the trailer below, then prepare to update your own first-contact survival plan. Mine currently reads: avoid billionaires, avoid islands, avoid glowing rocks, and never trust a machine that hums in Latin.
