Follow the Signs
"Silent Warnings" starts with Stephen Baldwin as Joe entering his farm house with rifle in hand, rebuking his cousin for not having his weapon. But his cousin is a dummy dressed in army fatigues on the sofa and Joe is obviously crazy? What caused the craziness? Well quickly we assume it must be aliens as he hears noises from upstairs and starts shouting that it has escaped, I say that it must be aliens because if feels like a spin-off from "Signs" with a corn field, a farm and shadowy creatures running around. The opening ends with Joe's death as his jeep goes up in flames as he shoots at these shadowy creatures running through the corn but it is the best part of the movie thanks to an entertaining performance from Baldwin and because of what it suggests with that obvious similarity to "Signs".
After that the story focuses on Joe's younger cousin Layne who has inherited the farm and so with a group of college friends, yes there is the requisite African-American in there, head to the farm to fix it up. But after a few days there they become aware of some strange goings on as they investigate a series of cop circles and then discover Joe's paranoid videos on what is going on. When one of the group goes missing they come to the conclusion that there may be an alien menace in the fields.
There really isn't a lot to say about "Silent Warnings" because it is a low budget sci-fi movie which to mention it again has some similarities to "Signs" and revolves around teenagers on an isolated farm. There are very few surprises when it comes down to how the movie will play out because with a group of teenagers at a remote farm it is pretty predictable. But even taking into account that this is a direct to video movie and so expectations are low it doesn't offer up anything in the least bit clever, original or even amusing. Even the expected low budget special effects are a disappointment and as for other things such as atmosphere and character development it leaves you wanting.
On the subject of characters well we are in stereotypical college teen territory so we have easy going dudes, attractive girls which on a occasion go topless and as already mentioned the obligatory African-American and it is a case of working out which of these bunch are selfish and so should end up victims. What this also means that we have some typical performances from this good looking crowd, none of which is that believable but no worse than you will see in any of these teen horror movies. As I mentioned the best performance comes right at the start thanks to Stephen Baldwin who is interesting as the crazed Joe.
What this all boils down to is that "Silent Warnings" is just a poor direct to video sci-fi movie with some similarities to "Signs". It isn't completely terrible but is the sort of movie you would watch when you can't sleep and are channel surfing.
