“I feel rage, beautiful rage!”

ZombieDog’s rating: You’re already infected!

ZombieDog’s review: Disaster movies are nearly as old as filmmaking itself. Natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes, etc. carry with them potential of harm which easily translates into fear. Modern-day calamities such as nuclear power meltdown, computer virus run amok, surrounded by chemicals in our environment are ever present and haunt our daily lives.

Warning Sign is a super cool mid-80s film that focuses on biological warfare. It stars a whole host of “you know them when you see them” actors, most notably Sam Waterston from Law and Order.

The movie focuses on a company called Biotek which is in the business of making pesticides for corporate farms that will increase yields and allow more people to be fed. At least this is what they tell the public. It’s a small little company in the middle of nowhere and security is insanely tight. One night, an alarm goes off that indicates the air in the lab has been contaminated. Automated systems kick in the place and airtight security doors close.

The local sheriff’s wife Joanie Morse (Kathleen Quinlan) is the door security guard and contacts her husband Cal Morse (Sam Waterston) and tells him that something has gone wrong. Shortly after, she gets a call from the director of the laboratory telling her that everything is fine and that the alarm is in error and to open the door. Just then, an emergency call from the main researcher tells her that the leak is real, the building needs to be sealed, and she should enter protocol one which involves contacting the government.

Warning Sign plays out like a disaster movie or an industrial accident. These people have basic protocols put in place, and they contact the authorities who are equipped to deal with these types of incidents. The government approaches it with all due caution, and we get the sense that while this is a state secret, it’s nothing it can’t handle.

I can’t even begin to describe how insanely similar this story is to the PlayStation 1’s Resident Evil. The storylines are so similar, in fact, I can’t believe that at least a court case wasn’t attempted. Although I don’t want to delve too deep into storyline, I’m still a little curious why the company was working on a virus that turns people into highly aggressive zombies. How come these companies never work on a virus or chemical that just straight up kills you?

The situation goes from bad to worse when the government sends a small squad of soldiers to assess the situation inside the lab. Predictably, the soldiers are swarmed and the hole that they used to get inside the building is quickly sealed up. Undeterred, the sheriff finds a researcher Dr. Dan Fairchild (Jeffrey DeMunn, The Mist) who recently quit and convinces him to help. They managed to break into the building and the race is on to save everybody including his pregnant wife.

This is an ’80s movie, albeit an odd one because it doesn’t really have any of those telltale ’80s movies stylized aspects. It’s important to remember that theaters were much more popular than they are now. There were tons of movies that were produced that played on the back screen, and I imagine this is one of those. It made $2 million at the box office but did not recover its budget of $7 million.

Warning Sign is a bit mechanical; it feels as though it was slightly above TV quality but not approaching cinematic level. Director Hal Barwood worked on such films as THX-1138, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Dragonslayer. While these are outstanding projects to be associated with, he mainly worked with writing and technical aspects. I believe it comes across in his directing style. He’s an efficient director and is going to work his way through the script with that efficiency over style.

Everything here is decent. Not exceptional, just… decent. The casting is decent, the story is slightly better than decent. Although the pacing is enough to pull you through the entire hour and 39 minutes. I do have a slight problem with the “zombies.” I’m not certain how arguably world-class scientists turn into blood-crazed sociopaths. They seem to have glossed over this and just basically threw the explanation at the virus.

This is worth your time, just don’t expect too much. It’s a good example of second-level cinema produced just to be shoved onto empty screens. If you’re into zombies, take a peek.