After a containment breach at a Biotek lab, Joanie Morse (Kathleen Quinlan) initiates biohazard protocols sealing the building. Joanie's husband and local Sheriff, Cal Morse (Sam Waterson) tries to keep the peace as increasingly nervous locals become violently frustrated with their friends and loved ones trapped. And Major Connolly (Yaphet Kotto) goes to drastic measures to keep the true nature of the Biotek quarantine a secret.
Released in the late August dumping ground of 1985, Warning Sign went largely ignored by critics and the general public thanks in no small part to distributor 20th Century Fox giving the film a minimal release effort and making back only slightly below $2 million. The film marks the final collaboration between writers Hal Barwood and Mathew Robbins (Sugarland Express, Corvette Summer, Macarthur, Dragonslayer) before Barwood left the film industry for the literary and video game industry. Warning Sign marks Barwood's sole directing credit for a major release and despite some rough parts he makes a decent impression.
When Warning Sign first begins, it has the feel of one of the thrillers from the 70s like Colossus: The Forbin Project, The Andromeda Strain, or Coma with the film taking a rather mundane location and using its familiarity and mundanity to good effect to contrast against the unseen threats the movie establishes. The opening 40 minutes are tense and gripping as we see both the outside of the Biotek facility with Sheriff Morse trying impotently to understand the shadowy actions of Major Connolly and his Accident Containment team, while inside security guard Joanie tries to maintain the quarantine despite scores of people panicking and becoming riled up. Barwood does a good job of showing us both sides of the quarantine and containment breach, and the opening sequence where we see the events that lead to the accidental release are so simple and yet believable, that it makes the tension believable.
Unfortunately somewhere around the half way point the movie takes a turn and stretches the believability of its premise to the breaking point. Without giving too much away, the trailer tiptoes around a rather major development of the story and while its not unthinkable that it could've been believable, the road it takes to get there complete with a misdirection that feels like a cheat in hindsight makes it seem rather silly and out of place with the first half of the film. The movie continues down this road throughout the remainder of the running time, and on top of the silly developments trying to be serious and chilling it goes until a massively unbelievable development simply because the writers wanted to end a certain way and wrote themselves into a corner. When this development revealed itself at the third act I actually laughed because of how nonsensical it was in its pursuit of trying for a clean wrap up.
Warning Sign is a heavily flawed movie. While the opening 40 minutes are chilling in a rather grounded approach to a biological thriller, developments in the later half stretch believability of the initial premise and take an already high concept even higher before clumsily wrapping up in a way that feels artificial. There's some good atmosphere and tension, but it leads to an unfortunately disappointing conclusions. It's a shame Barwood's directorial debut proved to be his last foray into film in general, because with refinement I could see him directing something really good.
Released in the late August dumping ground of 1985, Warning Sign went largely ignored by critics and the general public thanks in no small part to distributor 20th Century Fox giving the film a minimal release effort and making back only slightly below $2 million. The film marks the final collaboration between writers Hal Barwood and Mathew Robbins (Sugarland Express, Corvette Summer, Macarthur, Dragonslayer) before Barwood left the film industry for the literary and video game industry. Warning Sign marks Barwood's sole directing credit for a major release and despite some rough parts he makes a decent impression.
When Warning Sign first begins, it has the feel of one of the thrillers from the 70s like Colossus: The Forbin Project, The Andromeda Strain, or Coma with the film taking a rather mundane location and using its familiarity and mundanity to good effect to contrast against the unseen threats the movie establishes. The opening 40 minutes are tense and gripping as we see both the outside of the Biotek facility with Sheriff Morse trying impotently to understand the shadowy actions of Major Connolly and his Accident Containment team, while inside security guard Joanie tries to maintain the quarantine despite scores of people panicking and becoming riled up. Barwood does a good job of showing us both sides of the quarantine and containment breach, and the opening sequence where we see the events that lead to the accidental release are so simple and yet believable, that it makes the tension believable.
Unfortunately somewhere around the half way point the movie takes a turn and stretches the believability of its premise to the breaking point. Without giving too much away, the trailer tiptoes around a rather major development of the story and while its not unthinkable that it could've been believable, the road it takes to get there complete with a misdirection that feels like a cheat in hindsight makes it seem rather silly and out of place with the first half of the film. The movie continues down this road throughout the remainder of the running time, and on top of the silly developments trying to be serious and chilling it goes until a massively unbelievable development simply because the writers wanted to end a certain way and wrote themselves into a corner. When this development revealed itself at the third act I actually laughed because of how nonsensical it was in its pursuit of trying for a clean wrap up.
Warning Sign is a heavily flawed movie. While the opening 40 minutes are chilling in a rather grounded approach to a biological thriller, developments in the later half stretch believability of the initial premise and take an already high concept even higher before clumsily wrapping up in a way that feels artificial. There's some good atmosphere and tension, but it leads to an unfortunately disappointing conclusions. It's a shame Barwood's directorial debut proved to be his last foray into film in general, because with refinement I could see him directing something really good.