4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Today, we pay tribute to the year 1990! It’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 1990 Films
Goodfellas (1990, dir by Martin Scorsese, DP: Michael Ballhaus)
Avalon (1990, directed by Barry Levinson, DP: Allen Daviau)
Dances With Wolves (1990, dir by Kevin Costner, DP: Dean Semler)
The Forbidden Dance Is Lambada (1990, dir by Greydon Clark, DP: R. Michael Stringer)
Today’s scene that I love comes from my favorite Greydon Clark movie, 1990’s The Forbidden Dance!
Yes, this scene is technically a spoiler. It’s got music! It’s got dancing! It has some deeply questionable stereotypes and some obvious virtue signaling! It has that classic line, “We should just boycott their ass!” It’s got Sid Haig! It’s got everything you could ever hope for!
And remember — this film is dedicated to the preservation of the rain forest.
4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films is just what it says it is, 4 (or more) shots from 4 (or more) of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films lets the visuals do the talking.
Today, Through the Shattered Lens wishes a happy 82nd birthday to the one-of-a-kind director, Greydon Clark! And that means that it’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 Greydon Clark Films
Angels Brigade (1979, dir by Greydon Clark, DP: Dean Cundey)
Without Warning (1980, dir by Greydon Clark, DP: Dean Cundey)
Final Justice (1985, dir by Greydon Clark, DP: Nicholas Josef von Sternberg)
The Forbidden Dance Is Lambada (1990, dir by Greydon Clark, DP: R. Michael Stringer)
1980’s Without Warning opens with a father (Cameron Mitchell) and his gay son (Darby Hinton) on a hunting trip. The father taunts his son about not being what the father considers to be a real man. He says that his son would have no chance of surviving in the wilderness.
“Why does it always have to be like this?” the son asks with a sincerity that will break your heart.
Suddenly, a bloodsucking starfish flies through the air, lands on the father, and starts to suck out his blood with a phallic stinger. The father dies while his son watches. The son picks up his rifle and prepares to fight back. This will be the son’s chance to prove that his father was incorrect. This is the son’s chance to prove that he can survive in the wilderness and….
Just kidding. The son forgot to load the rifle and promptly gets a starfish to the eye.
That’s the type of film that Without Warning is. Characters are introduced. The majority of them are played by B-actor who have seen better days. They get a few minutes of character development. Then, they die and the viewer is left feeling a bit depressed because they all seemed like they deserved just a bit more screentime than they received. Larry Storch shows up as a boy scout leader who gets a starfish to the back while trying to light a cigarette. Neville Brand, Ralph Meeker, and Sue Anne Langdon hang out in a bar and refuse to believe that the Earth has been invaded by blood-sucking starfish. Jack Palance plays a hunter and gas station owner who wants to capture an alien as a trophy. Martin Landau plays Sarge, an unbalanced Vietnam Vet who has been telling people for years that there are aliens out there. Everyone laughed at old Sarge but they won’t be laughing for long! At the time this film was made, Palance was a two-time Oscar nominee. He finally won his Oscar for City Slickers, a decade after Without Warning. Martin Landau, for his part, won his Oscar 15 years after Without Warning. Good for them. If nothing else, this movie should remind everyone who has dismissed Eric Roberts’s chances that there’s still time!
That said, none of these familiar faces are the stars of the film. Instead, the majority of the film follows four teenagers on a road trip, Sandy (Tarah Nutter), Greg (Christopher S. Nelson), Beth (Lynn Theel), and Tom (David Caruso). David Caruso as a sex-crazed teenager sounds more amusing than it actually is. If anything, the sight of him wearing shorts and t-shirt is almost blinding. (As a fellow redhead, I sympathize. We burn but we don’t tan.) Tom and Beth die early on, leaving Greg and Sandy to try to escape from the alien (Kevin Peter Hall) who is tossing around the starfish. Both characters are pretty generic but Christopher Nelson is at least likable.
Without Warning has a reputation for being the best film that Greydon Clark ever directed and I would agree that it’s one of his better ones, though I prefer The Forbidden Dance. Then again, when you consider some of the other films that Clark directed, it’s easy to see that Without Warning didn’t exactly have a huge bar to clear. Though the script borrows a bit too much from nearly every other horror film ever made, Without Warning is nicely paced and the killer starfish are genuinely frightening and their bloodsucking is almost Cronenbergian in its ick factor. Just as he would for John Carpenter, cinematographer Dean Cundey gives us some nicely eerie shots of the alien. Landau and Palance go all out, understanding that subtlety has no place in a film like this. Without Warning is a dumb B-movie but it’s definitely entertaining.
Without Warning (1980, dir by Greydon Clark, DP: Dean Cundey)
The 1976 film, Black Shampoo, tells the story of Mr, Jonathan (played by an expressionless actor named John Daniels). Mr. Jonathan is the hottest hairstylist on the Sunset Strip. Rich women flock to his salon so that Mr. Jonathan can do their hair and, as the first scene in the film makes clear, do a lot more as well. Black Shampoo begins with a wash and rinse that soon leads to Mr. Jonathan’s client saying, “It is bigger and better!” while the singers on the film’s funk-heavy soundtrack tell us that, “He’s a real man.”
Mr. Jonathan is so popular that the women who come into his salon are visibly upset if they’re told that their hair will be done by Mr. Jonathan’s two associates, Artie and Richard. “Artie doesn’t have the right equipment!” one woman exclaims while another complains, “My hair’s a mess …. I haven’t had my hair done in over a month.” Fortunately, helping to keep the place running is Mr. Jonathan’s new administrative assistant, Brenda St. John (Tanya Boyd). In fact, Mr. Jonathan could even see himself settling down with Brenda.
Unfortunately, Brenda is the ex-girlfriend of a white gangster named Mr. Wilson (Joe Ortiz). And Mr. Wilson is determined to get Brenda back, even if it means sending two of his thugs down to Mr. Jonathan’s and messing the place up. It’s easy for them to vandalize the salon and to harass Artie and Richard because Mr. Jonathan hardly ever seems to be there. He’s always either visiting a client at home or taking part in a falling in love montage with Brenda. When Brenda is kidnapped, Mr. Jonathan falls into a deep depression. Eventually, though, Mr. Jonathan realizes that he has to rescue Brenda and retrieve the black book that proves that Mr. Wilson is a crime lord. Fortunately, Mr. Jonathan is as handy with a chainsaw as he is with a hair blower.
Ugh. This film …. I mean, to be honest, the movie seems like it’s going to be fun when it starts. Yes, the acting is terrible and the dialogue is risible but it’s such a 70s film that I assumed it would be kind of fun. And there are some enjoyably silly moments, like the whole falling in love montage. But, as the film progresses, the violence and the film’s overall tone just gets uglier and uglier. That, in itself, is not a problem. In fact, you could argue that violence should be ugly because it’s violence. But, in the case of Black Shampoo, too much of that ugly violence is played for titillation. When Mr. Wilson threatens to sodomize a character with a curling iron, the film seems to take a certain delight in Mr. Wilson’s sadism. The film is certainly not on the side of the poor guy who is being threatened. Instead, it feels like the film is saying, “Do you think will show this happen or do you think will cut to another scene? Keep watching to find out!” It’s gross.
It would help if Mr. Jonathan were himself an engaging character but John Daniels’s performance in painfully dull. He has a definite physical presence, though he definitely looks a lot better on the film’s poster than he does in the actual movie. But, when he has to deliver dialogue or show emotion, he’s so awkward that it’s like staring at a brick wall and waiting for it to do something. As a character, Mr. Jonathan should be someone who moves with a certain confidence and swagger. John Daniels usually seems like he’s more busy trying not to look straight at the camera.
On the plus side, everyone’s hair looks beautiful.
A mysterious plague wiped out most of humanity and a group of fascist cyborgs took over. (They actually prefer to be called Synthetics but everyone knows that they’re actually cyborgs.) The remaining humans were exiled to an abandoned train station that was renamed the Forbidden Zone. In the Forbidden Zone, the human survive as bartenders and sex slaves for their cyborg overlords. If you want to enter or leave the Forbidden Zone, you have to put your hand on one of those balls of lightning that people used to buy at Spencer’s Gifts.
The humans have been told that they are all sterile, which is one reason why they are willing to accept living in such a dark future. When a baby is born in the Forbidden Zone, it blows up the sterility myth. Kendall (Darby Hinton, who co-wrote the script and who is best remembered for starring in Andy Sidaris’s Malibu Express) is a bartender who tries to protect the baby while rallying the other humans to rise up against the cyborgs Synthetics. The Synthetics want that baby for their own incoherent reasons. War breaks out between man and the half-machines.
Even by the normal standards of director Greydon Clark, this is low budget nonsense. The action’s slow, the story is incoherent, the acting is bad, you get the idea. There are a lot of scenes of people standing around fires that have been lit in barrels. There’s so many barrels on fire that the Forbidden Zone should have burned down years ago. Also, why is it called the Forbidden Zone when anyone can enter it whenever they want to? The humans aren’t allowed to leave the train station/night club/brothel so it seems like the rest of the world should be called the Forbidden Zone. The future is dark and not easily understood. So is this movie.
4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
This October, I’m going to be doing something a little bit different with my contribution to 4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films. I’m going to be taking a little chronological tour of the history of horror cinema, moving from decade to decade.
Today, we take a look at a very important year: 1980
8 Shots From 8 Horror Films: 1980
Inferno (1980, dir by Dario Argento, DP: Romana Albano)
Without Warning (1980, dir by Greydon Clark, DP: Dean Cundey)
Friday the 13th (1980, dir by Sean S. Cunningham, DP: Barry Abrams)
Maniac (1980, dir. William Lusting, DP: Robert Lindsay)
City of the Living Dead (1980, dir by Lucio Fulci, DP: Sergio Salvati)
Dressed To Kill (1980, dir by Brian De Palma, DP: Ralf D. Bode)
Night of the Hunted (1980, dir by Jean Rollin)
The Shining (1980, directed by Stanley Kubrick, DP: John Alcott)
4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films is just what it says it is, 4 (or more) shots from 4 (or more) of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films lets the visuals do the talking.
Today, Through the Shattered Lens wishes a happy 78th birthday to the one-of-a-kind director, Greydon Clark! And that means that it’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 Greydon Clark Films
Angels Brigade (1979, dir by Greydon Clark, DP: Dean Cundey)
Without Warning (1980, dir by Greydon Clark, DP: Dean Cundey)
Final Justice (1985, dir by Greydon Clark, DP: Nicholas Josef von Sternberg)
The Forbidden Dance Is Lambada (1990, dir by Greydon Clark, DP: R. Michael Stringer)
Remember the Warren Beatty film SHAMPOO, about sexual and political attitudes in the Swingin’ 70’s? Well, BLACK SHAMPOO starts off as the Blaxploitation version, as super-stud Mr. Jonathan takes good care of all the follicle and sexual needs of the Horny Housewives of Beverly Hills – then veers sharply down Sleazy Street with lots of smutty scenes of simulated sex, flamingly gay stereotypes, and a violently gory finale! Yep, they truly don’t make ’em like this anymore; the “woke” crowd would never let ’em get away with it (except of course for the rich white bad guy!).
While Jonathan is out satisfying his amorous customers, his receptionist Brenda gets a visit from a trio of thugs representing Mr. Wilson, a greasy drug dealing crook who wants her back in his arms – and bed. The hoods trash Jonathan’s salon and rough up squeaky-voiced gay hairdresser Artie. Brenda goes back to…
For today’s horror on the Shattered Lens, we have 1980’s Without Warning.
In this horror/sci-fi hybrid, humans are hunted by an alien hunter who uses a variety of weapons and … what was that? No, we’re not watching Predator. We’re watching Without Warning. For the record, Without Warning and Predator may have almost exactly the same plot but Without Warning came out long before Predator.
(Interestingly enough, Kevin Peter Hall played the intergalactic hunter in both films.)
Anyway, Without Warning is probably the best film that Greydon Clark ever directed. Some would say that’s not saying much but seriously, Without Warning is a surprisingly effective film. It also has a large cast of guest stars, the majority of whom are killed off within minutes of their first appearance. That alien takes no prisoners! (I especially feel sorry for the cub scouts.)
Of course, the main characters are four teenagers. One of them is played by David Caruso, which I have to admit amuses me to no end.
Through the Shattered Lens 