Silent Warnings

After the accidental death of his cousin Joe Vossimer (Stephen Baldwin), the just-graduated electronic engineer Layne Vossimer (A.J. Buckley) joins his girlfriend and four friends of them to visit and clean the inherited farm in the country. The local Sheriff Bill Willingham (Billy Zane) is an old friend of Layne, and also grieves the death of Joe. When the group arrives in the farm, some weird and mysterious signs appear in the cornfield, but they believe the other locals are joking with them. When Iris Doyle (Kim Onasch) vanishes, the rest of the group realizes that there is a serious menace jeopardizing that place.

"Warnings" is a ridiculous horror-sci-fi movie, a shameful ripoff of "Signs", inclusive using a location identical to Mel Gibson's farm. What else can I write about a movie where the participation of "the great actor" (of course I am being ironical…) Stephen Baldwin is less than five minutes, only to give his name to the credits? I have just glanced some IMDb reviews, and their titles are enough to describe and comment this crap:

a) "Stupid";

b) "Awful";

c) "WHAT A JOKE...,";

d) "My God, Save Your Money!";

e) "Garbage";

f) "What a complete waste of time";

g) "What a rip-off";

h) "Total 'Signs' Rip-Off".

My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Aviso Mortal" ("Mortal Warning")

OK, this film isn't anything special, but I was motivated to watch it because of A.J. Buckley, who plays Layne. He did the best that he could with his character, I totally enjoyed his performance. He can say everything just with his beautiful blue eyes. Whoever appreciates this actor and his work, should definitely watch this film. He's the best! The characters could have been developed a lot more, especially Layne's. He had issues with his girlfriend, but the script seemed to forget about it quite quickly. The ending felt rushed, and it sort of ruined the premise. Overall, it could have been much, much better. A.J.'s performance made it OK to watch, but the rest of the cast was weak, with the exception of Billy Zane, who wasn't given enough room to shine, though.

I was recently at the local video store and saw Silent Warnings on the shelf. I figured how bad can it really be? I rented it, took it home and the second everyone saw what I had rented they were scrutinizing it. I ignored thinking that a movie about aliens and crop circles really can't be completely disappointing. I popped it in the DVD player and proceeded to watch the film.

At first glance, it looks just like Signs. A farm, crop circles and the appearance of aliens in only slight amounts at first, but more prominent nearer the end.

Basically, a young man inherits his crazy cousin's farm after his death and goes there with some friends to fix the place up and sell it. After only being there for a few days they start noticing crop circles, someone disappears and they realize that, for some reason, aliens are attacking them on the farm. They do whatever they can to stay alive and figure out how to get rid of the aliens.

Silent Warnings feels like a made-for-TV budgeted film, but somehow worse. None of the main characters had any acting ability, unless you count Billy Zane as a main character, but he doesn't really have many lines so I wouldn't label him as one.

Now I guess I should be fair in respect to the acting and small budget effects. These are always expected with the typical straight-to-video, "never-heard-of-it" movies. But...Silent Warnings left one small thing out of the plot. An ending. I've never been so disappointed by the end of a movie in my life. Signs was bad, Jeepers Creepers was bad...This was awful.

All in all, I knew it wouldn't be good, but I had no idea.

Overall Rating: 2 / 10

I wasn't sure what to expect from Silent Warnings. After seeing it, I found it not a great movie but it was an okay one. It actually looks good, the photography is not choppy and the scenery has a certain eeriness. The first fifty minutes or so were decent, not great due to how derivative it was, but there are admirable attempts at evoking suspense and tension and there are some creepy moments and it didn't make the mistake of boring me. The acting is also better than average, though Stephen Baldwin in a rather "bit" role is rather over-the-top. Billy Zane is also in a small role but does a good job with it. AJ Buckley is the one who carries Silent Warnings and he does very well with it being charismatic and likable. However, it is the ending really where everything just fizzles out, the explanations are just nonsensical and it all feels melodramatic. The script is uneven, thankfully it is not that cheesy and stilted like I was expecting and builds up the characters(who thankfully didn't infuriate me) nicely. Sadly it does change tone and that shift feels like a completely different and inferior work and it just didn't work. But the worst asset of Silent Warnings was by far the special effects, which are terribly fake. All in all, has terrible effects and an uneven script but until it fizzles out at the end Silent Warnings was reasonably good. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Of course, it was obvious that it was a rip-off of Signs, but I didn't quite know what to make of Signs, so I thought this might provide a more wholesome movie experience. It started out well. After the main character's cousin mysteriously dies in a car crash, this guy and five college friends of his go to the cousin's house in a corn field near a small rural village. It's a good set-up, and there is a very nice and natural dynamic between all the characters, leading one to think that there might actually be a good story in here somewhere.

Unfortunately, there isn't. The interesting character interactions, which you want to see developed, get cut short by some silly nonsense about anonymous grey aliens. The end is a meaningless fizzle, where you can't tell if the alien invasion is retreating or advancing.

The movie starts out having a point, but ends up having none. 4 out of 10.