Silent Warnings (2003)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

i must have seen a different film!!

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

SILENT WARNINGS is a pretty bad alien abduction style movie about a bunch of characters in a deserted farmhouse finding themselves at the mercy of crop circles and extraterrestrial critters lurking about outside. Yes, it's a cheesy rip off of Mel Gibson's SIGNS and just as ridiculous as you'd expect from that lacklustre premise.This is a film that has all of the usual requirements of a B-movie and it's just a shame it takes so long to get going, because it could have been more fun had they got on with the cheapo thrills. Instead, we get a good hour of characters sitting around and twiddling their thumbs before the alien invasion starts for real. In that time, the writers usually find ways for the female cast members to strip naked while the males remain clothed; exploitation at its best.The cast members are nothing to write home about, and there are exactly two familiar faces here. The first is Stephen Baldwin, who delivers a rambling, incoherent cameo at the outset. Better served is Billy Zane in the sheriff role; he gets more to do, particularly towards the climax, where he gets into the right cheesy spirit. Wait until you see the special effects for the aliens - there's cheesy CGI and then there's the CGI in this movie, which beggars belief. Good explosion, though.

***SPOILERS*** Decent and straightforward clone of the previous years,2002, Mel Gibson movie "Signs" without the heavy religious overtones of the original.We see right away that things aren't going too good at the old Vossimer farm. Crazy Joe Vossimer, Stephen Bladwin, has been under attack by these unseen, by everyone but Joe, aliens from other space that made his 40 acer cornfield their home. Even though Joe had somehow found how to battle the aliens it seems that it was still too late for the rest of humanity, as well as Crazy Joe, in that he drunkenly got himself killed by his own hand as he was partying, all by himself, the night away.It was now up to crazy Joe's close relative the just graduated electronic major Layne, A.J Buckley, and his fellow graduating student friends to be the one's to save the world together with the help of the town sheriff Bill Willingham, Billy Zane. It's not that Layne & Co. were out to save the world all they wanted to do was have a good time refurbishing the Old Vossimer home & Farm and have put it, by Layne, on sale. It was that's how things just turned out in that they were designated by fate, or a power beyond their control, to battle an alien invasion of the earth that they accidentally came upon.Not expecting to find what they eventually did the young people were just having a good time doing their thing, besides cleaning up the place, in the wilds of rural Oregon until things started to get a bit weird! Like these strange crop circles popping up all over the cornfield like weeds in your backyard. At first thinking that the crop circles were the work of a few local sh*t kicking farmhands it soon became obvious, in them being both overly drunk and utterly brainless, that it was the work of some higher form of intelligence possibly from another planet.It was Layne who at first suspected something wasn't kosher when he found in the attic a number of video tapes made by Crazy Joe explaining his paranoia of aliens from outer space. It's later when one of Layne's friends Maurice, Ransford Doherty, while peeping through the keyhole of sexy Iris Doyle's, Kim Onasch, room as she was undressing that he saw, besides Iris undressed, a alien shape in her window! Blowing his cover Maurice ended up barreling into Iris' room exposing himself as a peeping Tom, or Maurice, but at the same time alerting his fellow students and friends that there are aliens out there and their up to no good.It still took a while for Layne and his friends to finally get the picture that they and the earth was under attack, from aliens from outer space, but when they did it was almost too late in that the aliens had already gotten the upper hand as well as done in a number of them. It's when Sheriff Willingham, who finally got off his a**, came on the scene that the battle for the Vossimer Farm took a sudden and dramatic turn for the better. ****SPOILERS**** It became obvious, from what Crazy Joe left behind on the farm, that the aliens were somehow unable to fend off anything made of pure iron as well as it being electrified by connected to an electric current. It's that secret that Sheriff Willingham found out, through Crazy Joe's video's and writings, that in the end turned the tide against the invisible and materializing, from out of thin air, aliens.Making the ultimate sacrifice in preventing the aliens from taking over the Vossimer Farm as well as zapping Layne and his friends, or what was left of them, Sheriff Willingham stopped them dead, or hot, in their tracks. It was just too bad that the rest of the world, or the United State's West Coast, didn't have other men of sheriff Willingham's insight courage conviction and determination as well. As we soon find out in the movie's shocking and disturbing final moments.

Why the likes of Billy Zane and Stephen Baldwin would do this silly 2003 film beats me. I have great respect for their body of work and to see them romp through this nonsense was hard to take. Finally gave up watching it on TV. Directed by Christian McIntire from a screenplay by Bill Lundy adapted from a book by Kevin Gendreau, it has every aspect of a very good film. The camera work was excellent and some of the shots set the mood beautifully. So why did I find this so bad? Seeing the actual aliens was a big let down. A bad choice. Like that famous classic CAT PEOPLE, not seeing them would have made it more frightening. Then there was the supporting cast; The three girls played by Callie De Fabry, Michelle Borth and Kim Onosch were just plain awful. Screaming was just about the stretch of their acting. Borth being the worst of the lot. I couldn't wait for them to be taken by the aliens just to shut them up. The boys were not that good either, although had some finer moments than their mates. Layne Vassimer, Stephen Fox and Maurice Hall all played their roles and were on their marks but lacked a lot of believability. What I found the most objectionable was when we are reaching the climax with aliens popping out from everywhere, two couples decide to take the time to do their kissing scenes. Come on. In face of danger, they begin to neck? Not really. I give this loser a one in respect to the presence of Baldwin and Zane and a director I feel could do better work.

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.