Entertainment

THEY’RE DEAD RINGERS

ON the 10th Street crosstown bus the other day, my fel low riders included a creep who insisted on screaming into his cell phone at the top of his lungs.

Target was having a big sale on TVs, he announced loudly, and he needed a friend to drive him to Flushing (Flushing?!) so he could take advantage of what he kept calling a “blowout.”

At first, I was tempted to tell this obnoxious dude to blow it out his you know what; then I thought of “The Signal,” in which cellphones and TVs turn people into homicidal maniacs.

Not wishing to meet a bloody end on the way to the Strand bookstore, I kept quiet.

“The Signal,” opening today, is a slasher fest that references such predecessors as George A. Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” and “Pulse,” a 2001 chiller by Japan’s talented Kiyoshi Kurosawa, while still remaining original.

It’s New Year’s Eve in the city of Terminus (the original name for Atlanta, where the film was shot) and Mya (Anessa Ramsey) is headed back to her husband, Lewis (A.J. Bowen), after a night in the sack with her lover, Ben (Justin Welborn).

She’s accosted in an underground parking lot – when will young women learn to avoid them? – by two victims of the electronic plague, dubbed “the crazy.”

She escapes, only to discover back home that cellphones are giving out screeching noises and TVs are picking up only hallucinogenic static.

Then, without warning, Lewis takes a baseball bat to a male buddy’s skull. (Splat!) From then on, it’s every man and woman for him- and herself.

As one character puts it, there’s some “seriously insane s – – t” going ’round.

Streets, hallways and apartments are littered with bodies, and not even friends and spouses can be trusted. But there’s time for humor nevertheless, such as a bodiless head that comes to life and immediately demands a cigarette. (He’s already dead, so what’s the harm?)

Unlike traditional zombie romps, these crazies don’t stumble around mindlessly, noshing on human flesh. They look and act like normal people – until the second they go bonkers.

“The Signal” is divided into three interconnected parts, called “transmissions,” each with its own director-writer: David Bruckner, Jacob Gentry and Dan Bush, in that order.

There’s a message to their madness: Humanity is being messed up by technology. As Exhibit A, I offer that loudmouth on the bus.

vam@nypost.com