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Of all the franchises that came screaming out of the womb that was the 1980’s, few are as beloved as Predator. Released in 1987 and directed by future Last Action Hero director John McTiernan, the original film told the story of a paramilitary death squad lead by ‘Dutch’ Schaefer engaged in shady and likely illegal activities in South America, who are stalked and killed by a mysterious and often invisible alien hunter that would eventually become known as a Predator. The film was a success, I think in large part due to it starring Arnold ‘biggest action star in the world’ Schwarzenegger and his glistening biceps, and so the legion of spin off material was unleashed upon the world. Comic books, video games and of course film sequels, including two crossovers with the Alien franchise. Not that any of it is all that good, even though I kind of liked Predator 2, but like many of the famous movie monsters of old it has mastered the art of coasting forever off of the strength of one film. I say famous, but really it’s any and all movie monsters that studios think will get them even one more dollar than they might have otherwise. Just look at the 7 Evil Bong movies.
Almost a decade before Predator, there was a film by the name of Without Warning which, perhaps not surprisingly, was also about a mysterious and often invisible alien who hunted humans. Directed by Greydon Clark and starring America’s favorite beef roast Jack Palance as Taylor the hunter/gas station and Martin Landau as psycho Vietnam vet Dobbs, Without Warning handles the premise in a more standard, slasher movie sort of way: A group of teenagers, looking to ignore obvious warning signs and have premarital sex, journey into a tiny backwoods town on a road trip and end up being hunted down by the aforementioned alien hunter. In the meantime we get to see a couple other deaths, and of course the girl who doesn’t have sex is allowed to live. If you’ve seen Friday the 13th or about a hundred other entries in the B-movie schlock genre.
Unlike Friday the 13th however, Without Warning has enough issues that I don’t believe it quite manages to rise above its lack of budget, cinematically speaking. The first 40 minutes of the film seems to take place in the same 25 feet of ugly what-I-presume-to-be marshland, and the rest of the locations are so far removed from context it’s hard to really tell where anything is in relation to each other. The acting aside from Palance and Landau is average at best and even then it feels like the two are trying to one-up each other in the crazy department. That, combined with some uneven audio quality and a plot that doesn’t want to leave the runway, makes that 40 minutes a pretty rough watch.
I will say that the ultimate reveal of the alien is probably the best scene of the film, almost Lynchian in a way, and director Greydon Clark makes the correct choice of only barely hinting at the alien’s true identity through shadows and lingering camera angles. How the alien kills his victims however, with little bloodsucking starfish-like creatures that spin through the air like frisbees, is ridiculous almost to the point of parody, and the fact that this is what we see for the majority of the film places it more in the league of something like Slugs or Frogs rather than Predator. They try to compensate for that by throwing in some POV shots, as if the alien is stalking its victims, but they can’t even keep that consistent. Hell, the first two of those POV shots are practically the same fucking bit of footage, neither of which feel like a hunter sneaking up on their prey but more like some B-roll they had lying around in case they needed to pad out the run time. Look at the first Friday the 13th, hell look at the Evil Dead films, and then try to look at this with a straight face. Won’t be easy, let me tell you.
Without Warning isn’t a bad film, and the folks of Fangoria magazine at the time certainly seemed taken with it, but with the benefit of hindsight it’s neither good nor bad enough to be truly memorable. The adventurous sci-fi/horror fans with a lot of free time on their hands out there might be intrigued enough at the idea of a proto-Predator movie to hunt it down, but everyone else will probably be fine just sticking with Predator. At least until they finally make that Archie vs. Predator movie we’ve all been asking for.
Almost a decade before Predator, there was a film by the name of Without Warning which, perhaps not surprisingly, was also about a mysterious and often invisible alien who hunted humans. Directed by Greydon Clark and starring America’s favorite beef roast Jack Palance as Taylor the hunter/gas station and Martin Landau as psycho Vietnam vet Dobbs, Without Warning handles the premise in a more standard, slasher movie sort of way: A group of teenagers, looking to ignore obvious warning signs and have premarital sex, journey into a tiny backwoods town on a road trip and end up being hunted down by the aforementioned alien hunter. In the meantime we get to see a couple other deaths, and of course the girl who doesn’t have sex is allowed to live. If you’ve seen Friday the 13th or about a hundred other entries in the B-movie schlock genre.
Unlike Friday the 13th however, Without Warning has enough issues that I don’t believe it quite manages to rise above its lack of budget, cinematically speaking. The first 40 minutes of the film seems to take place in the same 25 feet of ugly what-I-presume-to-be marshland, and the rest of the locations are so far removed from context it’s hard to really tell where anything is in relation to each other. The acting aside from Palance and Landau is average at best and even then it feels like the two are trying to one-up each other in the crazy department. That, combined with some uneven audio quality and a plot that doesn’t want to leave the runway, makes that 40 minutes a pretty rough watch.
I will say that the ultimate reveal of the alien is probably the best scene of the film, almost Lynchian in a way, and director Greydon Clark makes the correct choice of only barely hinting at the alien’s true identity through shadows and lingering camera angles. How the alien kills his victims however, with little bloodsucking starfish-like creatures that spin through the air like frisbees, is ridiculous almost to the point of parody, and the fact that this is what we see for the majority of the film places it more in the league of something like Slugs or Frogs rather than Predator. They try to compensate for that by throwing in some POV shots, as if the alien is stalking its victims, but they can’t even keep that consistent. Hell, the first two of those POV shots are practically the same fucking bit of footage, neither of which feel like a hunter sneaking up on their prey but more like some B-roll they had lying around in case they needed to pad out the run time. Look at the first Friday the 13th, hell look at the Evil Dead films, and then try to look at this with a straight face. Won’t be easy, let me tell you.
Without Warning isn’t a bad film, and the folks of Fangoria magazine at the time certainly seemed taken with it, but with the benefit of hindsight it’s neither good nor bad enough to be truly memorable. The adventurous sci-fi/horror fans with a lot of free time on their hands out there might be intrigued enough at the idea of a proto-Predator movie to hunt it down, but everyone else will probably be fine just sticking with Predator. At least until they finally make that Archie vs. Predator movie we’ve all been asking for.
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