The Signal (2007)

Justin Welborn: Ben Capstone

Photos 

Quotes 

• Ben : Clark, I don't know who or what started it, but we all sure as shit signed up for it. We made ourselves vulnerable. When Mya left last night, I turned the TV back on and there it was. It was replacing my thoughts. But then the sun came up. I see it. It's a lie. The signal; it's a trick. Change the way you look at things, the things you look at will change.

• Lewis Denton : You don't know what you're saying.

  Ben : No, you don't know what you're saying. That TV got in your brain and has distorted your perception.

  Lewis Denton : I'm not crazy like those others.

  Ben : No man, you're much worse off, because you don't even realize what's happening to you. You don't even know. Your wife left you, alone, tied to a chair, helpless so the world can take your life and the savages can feast on your bloody remains.

• Ben : Listen to me. The car, the one that's wrecked, the one's that outside. The girl inside of it... where did she go?

  Clark : I told you already!

  Ben : Not me, that wasn't me. We've got to find her.

  Clark : I don't know. I don't know. Maybe he knows.

  [Clark points towards a decapitated head on the floor] 

  Clark : He was with her!

  Ben : Man, he's not gonna be able to talk to us!

• [first lines] 

  Ben : What was that? That was strange.

  Mya Denton : [in bed]  Come back.

  Ben : The TV turned itself on.

  Mya Denton : [reaching out]  Come back.

  Ben : Okay.

• Ben : Just sit down and relax.

  Mya Denton : [getting dressed]  I can't relax, Ben. I've never done this before. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to do this.

  Ben : First, you just breathe, and then realize that it's okay.

  Mya Denton : It's okay, what we're doing?

  Ben : Do you love your husband?

  Mya Denton : [after a long pause]  It doesn't matter.

• Ben : You can just drop your stuff right now, and stay here tonight, and never go back there again.

  Mya Denton : Ben...

  Ben : Or we could... go up to the rooftop and build an exotic flower garden. Or we could take one of my cameras, and dress up like homeless people, and infiltrate their community and take pictures of their lives. Or we could take my TV and throw it off the balcony and replace it with coloring books. Or we could leave Terminus tomorrow. New Years fucking Eve. We could.

  Mya Denton : Leave?

  Ben : Go down to the station, we'll walk up to Terminal 13, and we'll get on a train and we'll get into our own private compartment, rip each other's clothes off, and fuck our way to freedom. We'll go to the country and start a life. A real life. Mya and Ben. New Years Eve. Terminal 13. Mya and Ben. And you don't look back.

  Mya Denton : That's beautiful.

  Ben : It's possible.

• Ben : [to Lewis, about Mya]  I know where she is, and I'm going to find her, and free her from the burden of being the used-up adulterous whore that she is. I'm going to get to her. I'm going to get to her before you, and there's nothing you can do about it.

• Ben : [to Clark]  Finish jump-starting your head!

• Rod : The fuck you want?

  Clark : Can you hear me?

  Rod : Got a smoke?

  Clark : I don't smoke.

  Ben : Ask him about the girl.

  Rod : You want to know about the girl, give me a c-c-cigarette.

  Clark : He wants a cigarette.

  Ben : What? You're kidding me? You got to be fucking kidding me.

• Ben : [to Clark]  You're aware you're having a conversation with a decapitated head, right?

• Ben : Listen to me. Do you hear that? Listen. It's past the noise in your head. That is the natural world. That has been here a long time before us. It's going to be here a long time after we're gone. That is real. And that is what we focus on.

  Clark : Past the noise...

  Ben : Yeah.

  Clark : [laughing]  This calls for a radical reassessment of all the facts.

• [last lines] 

  Ben : Mya...