Warning Sign Reviews

An uneasy mix of social criticism, conspiracy paranoia, and horror, WARNING SIGN is sometimes interesting but eventually collapses because it can't decide which aspect to concentrate on. Set in a small Utah town, the film's action surrounds the BioTek Agronomics company where many of the members of the community work. Joanie Morse (Kathleen Quinlan) is employed as a security guard; her husband, Cal (Sam Waterston), is the local sheriff. While most citizens and employees believe that the company is trying to develop a strain of corn that will grow in salt water, the powers that be are actually performing some dangerous gene splicing in an effort to create a bacterium to be used in germ warfare. Of course, there is an accident at the plant, and the bacterium turns much of the population into slobbering zombies. Quinlan takes top honors in the acting department as the scared-but-tough security guard, and Richard Dysart adroitly handles his second zombielike role in a year's time (he was also in RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD).