User reviews

If not anything else, "Without Warning" proves that a film can be memorable and highly original without being brilliant. This is by no means a masterpiece, but it fully serves its purpose and resembles a punch in the stomach when you least expect it.

Didn't come up with high expectations (found it on YouTube), but the uncertainty building up throughout the film kept me watching. The ending caught me completely off guard. What makes this film so disturbing is that the story unwraps slowly, without being too explicit or over the top. By far one of the most plausible and haunting pieces apocalyptic fiction I've ever seen.

The film starts off in a parallel fashion to the famous Orson Wells radio drama of 1938; opening with "ordinary programming," which is then cut in upon by a brief news bulletin that reports of meteors had struck the Earth, in three countries: France, China, and the USA. After that, this story diverges from the War of the Worlds, but bears some similarities.

It was a fun idea to mix actors and actual newscasters: Sander Vanocur is the anchorman following the rapidly unfolding story, and handles the increasing level of tension in the script pretty well. Bree Walker also succeeds in blending her journalistic talent with drama.

The mystery is effectively spooky, and this was, after all, like the radio play, an effort to say "Boo!" on Halloween. The interviews with people speculating on what was going on were just what you would expect if such a scenario was real. The interview with Arthur C. Clarke was intelligent, even fact-finding. The newscasters advancing on the sites of the meteor impacts was a good touch. Loud whines from the craters, burned survivors speaking in strange tongues, and the disappearance of two air force pilots: some eerily cool stuff. My favorite is the Faith, Wyoming sequence. This scene, was masterful in its simplicity. The narration by the newscaster describing the bizarre and inexplicable events there was a highlight of the sinister tone of the movie's events.

The movie starts to run out of gas in the latter stages, resorting to some clichés. This may be owing to the fact it had done such an immense buildup in its realistic news cast depictions, that it had to resolve the story in the bombastic way it does. There is some dialouge that nobody would say in the context of what transpires.

Even with the flaws, a good premise, skillfully executed. A fun and deliciously eerie movie.

This is without a doubt, one of the greatest made for TV movies I've ever seen. The first time I saw it, I actually thought what was being reported was really happening, so I changed the channel to CNN to see if they were also reporting on it. This movie is a great way to scare someone by making them think what their watching is real.

Well, for a TV movie then I have to admit that "Without Warning" was actually quite entertaining.

When I stumbled upon this 1994 movie by random chance here in 2023, I opted to sit down and watch it since it was a natural disaster movie that I hadn't already seen. In fact, I had never actually heard about the movie, so director Robert Iscove had every opportunity to bedazzle me.

The storyline in "Without Warning", as written by Jeremy Thorn, Walon Green and Peter Lance, actually proved rather entertaining and enjoyable. And the whole thing being set up and filmed as a news coverage was definitely something I had never seen done before, but it actually worked out quite nicely. Personally, I enjoyed the fact that the movie was made like a 100 minute news coverage, but I guess not everyone will find that appealing, as there wasn't really much action throughout the course of the movie.

"Without Warning" had good acting performances, and it was interesting to see Sander Vanocur as himself doing the staged newscast of the end of the world. THere were some familiar faces on the cast list as well, with the likes of Jane Kaczmarek, Brian McNamara, James Handy, John de Lancie, Ron Canada and Philip Baker Hall.

Visually then "Without Warning" was good. The effects were sparse and simplistic, but it worked nicely, since it was all set up to be breaking news reported live. I enjoyed that aspect of the movie.

I found "Without Warning" to be well worth spending 100 minutes on watching, and it is a movie that I will recommend to you watch if you enjoy end-of-the-world movies. Just keep in mind that it is presented as a 100 minute long newscast.

My rating of "Without Warning" lands on a six out of ten stars.

I saw this pretty late at night, and it draws you in so much. The plot twists and turns in an amazing story that mirrors a real-situation, so much that I thought it was a real news broadcast too. Only the appearance of Q from Star Trek, and references to 1994 gave the game away.

The end sequence, from the destruction of the 3 meteors onwards was as tense as many of the scenes in films like Scream. It also showed man's darker side, and gave many lessons for the future.

It wouldn't work on the big screen, but on the small screen it is one of the best films I have seen in a long time. And that's saying a lot for a film of such small stature!

Not realistic in the slightest. Incredibly cheesy, awful over acting tongue in cheek. Felt like they were all trying to stop themselves laughing most of the time... The message behind the whole thing though was clear and honorable, the ending made up for the cheesiness. Worth a watch once if you've not seen it.

We're supposed to believe these aliens were peaceful until we misunderstood them?

That's crazy. If their method of first contact is bombarding a (for all practical purposes) non space faring planet that doesn't their understand their earlier bombardment based communication. Uh...

While it's possible these aliens believe this makes sense, it's ridiculous that the human scientist berates everybody for Earth's response.

The most likely explanation for the aliens' extremely Rube Goldberg method of announcing their 'peaceful' intentions is that it was a pretense- perhaps to assuage their own guilt, or as a formality. Who knows? But there's nothing honest about it at all.

Now, in my defense, before i go on, i have to say that on the night in question (last night,) I was at home alone in my small room suffering a cold and had a small fever. I had also taken some cold medication and hadn't actually taken any notice of the title as I was watching movies back to back just trying to get over the cold. In addition, the lousy plan that my hotel had locked me down to didn't even afford me one news channel so that I couldn't verify what I was seeing. I started watching it and it went to the news flash portion. I must say that I was almost sucked in from then on. A few things I couldn't believe entirely but obviously I did in the end, as by the time they came up to the 9 minute deadline I'd put on my boots and hightailed it up to my local bar which was only 3 doors away and informed my mates. And didn't I cop it when I finally got to see that it wasn't even being broadcast on CNN or BBC. HAR HAR. I am going to pay dearly for that for some time. Although I was so convincing in my explanations of what was about to happen, the impending doom, that a couple of the guys started mentioning they wouldn't even have time to say goodbye to their children. I gotta say, Im also laughing as I write this as I am usually the sciatic. It will remain with me forever and although yes! I looked the jackass, its also something I doubt I will ever experience again. Im happy to have that. If you are reading this then its already too late. (Har har, thats what my mates kept saying over the beers.) You cannot possibly experience the same emotions. Phew! So glad it wasn't real. hehe.

Screen and theater acting techniques may bode well toward establishing a sense of drama within a realm where clearcut emotions, facial expressions, and unnaturally fluent speech patterns may enhanced form of medium clearly intended toward entertainment value, but in terms of attempting to emulate real-life behaviors, these methodologies almost always fall flat.

Thus, therein lies the essence of the problems with this movie, notwithstanding the problems with its storyline, in that the melodramatic clichés, overemotional expressions, unbroken sentence structures and laughable bits of overacting send this movie's pretensions toward realism crashing to the ground with greater impact than the "asteroids" that serve as its subject matter.

Notice how the news anchors maintain persistent eye contact with the camera, never glancing downward to look at their notes, as they are clearly reciting lines from a perfectly memorized and persistently rehearsed script. Seeking the all too recognizable imperfections of everyday conversation, such as "um"s, "yknow"s, apprehensive pauses or even so much as a broken sentence? You won't find it here, as "Without Warning"s depiction of "real life" clearly emits within an alternate universe where every bit of every day conversation is uttered with stringent adherence to grammatical correctness, exaggerated fluctuations in tone clearly designed to emphasize the character's ever present mental status and overzealous emotional expressions, lest the content of one's speech fail to properly clarify one's state of mind for the intellectually impaired.

One will also notice on-site news broadcasts lacking the characteristic confinement of audio cues emitting solely from a microphone, as the camera's seem to pick up background noises and surrounding ambiance with unbelievable clarity.

Minus the expressions, the behaviors of each and everyone involve serve as further reminders to the audience that they are in fact watching a movie. When spotting a girl who appears to have mysteriously been deposited at the center of a meteor impact site, the anchorwoman proceeds to "check on her" by immediately shoving the microphone in her face to record an odd verbal pattern which ultimately serves as one of the movie's preposterous "twists". No examining her. No inquiring as to whether she's okay. No muttering impressions that the child obviously appears to be in shock. Simply setting the immediate stage for a metaphorical "speech" that was clearly all too staged from the get go. At one point, an air force general holds a press conference with which to inform the public as to a series of facts which have already been established by prior broadcasts, then at the first sign of queries, holds an all too obviously "stunned" expression for several seconds, before declaring "no more questions", a gesture that practically screams out, "Yes, I'm definitely hiding something". A) Nice overacting, and B), why hold a press conference if you're essentially not going to say anything that people didn't know already?

One of the most laughable bits that boasts further credentials as to the movie's propensity for melodramatics and lack of logic depicts one of the news anchors on site of the impending impact zone of another "asteroid" amidst the military's plan to demolish it before impact. As the screen brightens, he proceeds to stumble around in the midst of an hysterical panic, questioning his colleague at the news room "WHY AREN'T THEY SHOOTING AT IT???!!!!" A) A one-way ticket to the Royal Hospital For Overracting for you, sir! (consult Monty Python's Ypres sketch for more information) and B) You're colleague is a news anchor; how the F would he know?

Clearly, one would need a twenty-series encyclopedia just to document every instance in which the movie's execution registers anything but the documentary-like impression that the filmmakers were striving for, but the storyline contains enough problems as it is.

One scientist's perfect deductions concludes that the first two "asteroids" were deliberately deposited in sparsely populated zones in preparation for guiding the third "vehicle" to its destination, the latter of which was destroyed by what he considers our "overzealous" use of an anti-satellite missile.

If these aliens needed "beacons" to land their welcome wagon, how did they manage to land the preceding probes with such precision?

The scientist proceeds to berate our "aggressive" behavior as having "declared war" on an alien species, and thus the remainder of the film proceeds to further "document" their revenge. So, this intellectually superior race of extraterrestrials tossed two over-sized rocks at our planet, killed quite a number of people, yet couldn't even contemplate how a civilization on the receiving end might perceive these gestures as a threat? Kudos to the movie for conceptualizing by far the dumbest technologically advanced race ever to permeate the universe.

Other illogical fallacies include the military's decision to transport the scientist in question (from within the country I might add) via F-16 (in order to naturally speed up the ETA). Clearly, given the distance traversed, the use of a fighter jet wouldn't make much of a decisive difference to merit this gesture, while the movie's ostensible implications that the jet would be cruising to its destination at top speed downplays the lack of fuel efficiency accorded the process of proceeding anywhere for considerable lengths on full afterburner.

With its overpopulation of plot holes, clichés, and innumerable little cues in the field of acting that completely foil any impressions to the public that what they're seeing is "real", this pretentious attempt to cash in the mock-documentary genre couldn't have been executed more poorly if the filmmaker's had planned it that way.

As the final commercial comment said, a realistic depiction of fictional events that never occurred. For Halloween of 1994, CBS paid homage to the Orson Welles radio broadcast of "War Of The Worlds" with a story about asteroids colliding with Earth. The movie is told in a style of interrupted TV broadcasts, eventually becoming on the air news of the destruction of the world. It is told like a series of newscasts breaking up normal broadcast television. (In fact, the movie opens up with a clip from a Mario Bava picture.) This is the movie's greatest strength.

To add to the realism, they used real news caster Sander Vanocur as the "star." It may seem kind of redundant, but, Vanocur does play a fake newscaster well, as if it is real. In too many cases, like say sports stars, it's hard to act playing your profession on screen. He lends the film believability, much the same way he does to the news scenes in "Street Fighter: The Movie." With cameos by, as themselves, Arthur C. Clarke and a bevy of people who you probably wouldn't know playing themselves, one might be forgiven for believing it if they came in on the middle on this. Only the appearances of established actors John de Lancie, Dennis Lipscomb (From another disaster epic, "The Day After.") Philip Baker Hall, and she who would become the mother of Malcolm In The Middle reassure anyone who hasn't been watching from the beginning that it's a fake.

The only real problem with this production are a few science fiction cliche's thrown into the story. Yes, we know we humans are barbarian. But, how else would you react when directed asteroids were being hurled your way, even if they may (Or may not.) have been under control of an alien, peaceful intelligence merely trying to send us a message? You take steps to prevent them from crashing into you. And, yes, blowing things up is a violent reaction, but, if you were an alien trying to peacefully contact Earth, would you rain down stone armageddon (Excuse the pun.) from the skies?



All in all, the final result is a pleasing surprise of extended, building suspense and (mostly) logical story progression. The ending is a nice surprise, where the denoument doesn't extend too long, for once. I'm glad I taped this during its first run, as I've not seen it air anywhere in the US since. Another perfect unknown candidate for a video release.

Although this movie didn't have the same budget as movies like Deep Impact or Armageddon, I thought is was pretty amusing. It's not the special-effects or the beautiful pictures that makes this little film interesting, but the fact that the story is told in the format of a live TV-news broadcast. One of the big American TV-stations follows every minute that the asteroids come closer to earth live, and they used a real newsreader which makes it pretty realistic. These asteroids will hit the earth in 3 places all on the same latitude (43th, I believe), the USA (Midwest), southern France and Northern China. The countries which have access to nuclear missiles combine forces in order to save the world, before thousands of asteroids will hit the earth....

Well, I would like to start by saying that I am not surprised by the fact that only a fistful of people know about this excellent movie... they are too busy watching Transformers or American Pie XII to care about some serious film-making. I will not ruin the plot of the film for those who have not seen it yet. I shall only say that if you somehow manage to get a copy of this film, you are on for a treat. Of course, you should not expect multi-million dollar visual effects or or even high definition image -considering this is a low budget film made more than 15 years ago. If you care about interesting stories, well acted and -most importantly- very original, then you shall not be disappointed. When you finish watching, tell your friends about it, "like" the movie on Facebook and Twitter, start a chain-mail telling the world about it, etc. This is the kind of film everybody should see at least once in their lifetimes.

'Without Warning' was a mock news broadcast TV movie along the same lines as Orson Wells's 'War of the Worlds' radio adaptation. Being that it was made in the mid-'90s, it doesn't know moderation when it comes to piling on the cheese! Its gimmick of being shot in the style of consistent news broadcasting for the duration falls flat in places because whereas the likes of Jane Kaszmareck (probably spelled it wrong - the mum from 'Malcolm in the Middle') provides some seriously good acting, she's then let down by the show being so unconvincing in every other way that she just looks like she's crying over the corpse of her career; that or cramps.

I know it was just television and how limited it was at the time, but even the sound effects and static interference visuals were poorly done. They irritated me more than anything.

Television should never try to be pantomime and nobody should be expected to call endless badly scripted talking entertainment.

Shown 30 October, 1994, the Anniversary of the radio broadcast of War Of The Worlds, Without Warning is a tribute to the legendary radio broadcast. The film effectively represents the feel of War of the Worlds, by using a real life news anchor, Sander Vanocur, and newslike camera work. The effect was so real, that thousands of people called TV stations asking if it was real. Without Warning is a well executed salute to the War of the Worlds broadcasts of the 1930s. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in War of the Worlds, and the recent asteroid movies, Deep Impact and Armageddon.

Some Television movies leave you feeling like you ate a TV diner if you devote a whole hour and a half to it. However this one will make you craving for another hour and half after the credits. It could have let us off the hook with a nice resolution but no. Just when you think this will be a TV movie softball it gets some teeth, no fangs and delivers. Put in the MUST REMAKE file! Never mind some of the actors betray the slice of life shockumentary format. The overall density and rapid moving plot move you past that. Many of the seasoned actors actually let the plot take you on the ride. I wish this would have had more impact as an actually genre rush like Paranormal Activity and the found video chain. This movie is that good. It is worthy of Orsonwells, Bradbury, and Serling.

While I love good sci-fi flicks this one had potential but fell flat on its face before it reach the second turn of the race. I also was a bit disappointed by this being more than a supposed network broadcast.

Where the plot really falls flat is that with the second meteor and third set of meteors that they could back track to the source. Also, with the speed they are flying and reaction from the third to the fourth set of meteors would mean they weren't much further than the moon creating a major whole in story-line.

The scientist trying to tie the diamonds together was also something of a childish attempt to prove alien intent that was dead on arrival. He goes over all this scientific info and then pulls a diamond image off one piece of how he is tying this to alien life behind what has happened.

This isn't a multi million dollar production. There aren't any big stars. The tape quality is low. In IMDb logic that automatically deducts two to four points. Not every disaster movie is Armageddon, not every serial killer movie is Seven, not ever animated movie has a DreamWorks budget. Accept it.

Ok. Rant over.

This is a fantastic piece of work. Intelligent and well made. Tons of 90s b actors you'll recognize. Besides the original granddaddy War of the Worlds, this is one of the best fake news broadcasts ever presented.

i saw the movie about 6 to seven years ago, and i'm searching for the movie online now (2003), that will say how much the movie impressed me. i was watching it at home in malaysia and it hit me that this movie may be a reality one day (very very slim chances). after watching the expression of the last newscaster saying his last words to his family and knowing that the time is over very soon is one of the scenes a remember until now. never mind the story line maybe a bit odd once you start to think about it after watching the movie, but, the movie gives u a chance to look at life again and remember that life can over within seconds. so make use of the time that u have. thats the message i got from tis movie.

sad that it is not released on vcd or any other form. I would surely like to own one copy of it. can anyone help?

i would recommend anyone this movie.