Without Warning

"Without Warning" is a cheap American b-movie horror from 1980 about the terror striking the beautiful American countryside... some people are brutally killed and mutilated by an unknown stranger, and it's the turn of a bunch of teenagers and war veterans to find out that an illegal alien has landed and is hunting for humans for his horrible collection...

Although this movie shows lots of stereotypes and well-known topics from many horror movies from the 50's to the 70's like "It Came From Outer Space", "The Thing", Jack Arnold and Roger Corman cheapos, "Night of the Living Dead", "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "Three on a Meathook" and even "Alien" and the new wave of high school slasher movies like "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th", it's an entertaining and thrilling affair.

There are some old movie veterans like Jack Palance, Martin Landau, Ralph Meeker, Cameron Mitchell and Neville Brand involved with Palance and Landau playing the mad alien hunters, and a young David Caruso in his very first movie role. The alien is played by Afro-American actor Kevin Peter Hall who also played the monster in "Predator 2" (1990). Director Greydon Clark never had a big break-through movie, but photographer Dean Cundey had a big time in the nineties with jobs for "Apollo 13", "Casper", "The Flintstones" and the Spielberg hits "Hook" and "Jurassic Park".

All in all it's a nice midnight movie and a small highlight for fans of seventies' paranoia horror films in the wake of the remakes of old alien, monster and disaster film productions. No more, no less.

Without Warning gets to the point quickly with a hunter and his son being attacked by bizarre flying saucer bloodsucking aliens. 4 young friends head to a lake to have a little fun and find themselves attacked by the same creatures. By the 30 minute mark, Without Warning shoots its load and runs out of steam as only two of the 4 are left and they run around town trying to get people to believe them.

Without Warning might have worked better as a short film, because the middle part of the film drags with nothing of interest happening as the cast hides out a seedy bar with only Jack Palance and Martin Landau's mugging to keep ones interest.

A hunter and his son travel in a RV to hunt in the woods of a park. Out of the blue, they are attacked by flying amoebae-like and die. When a scoutmaster stops at the location, he releases the boy scouts to play at the creek but is murdered by a flying amoeba-like and the boys flee from the spot. Meanwhile, the teenager Tom (David Caruso) invites the teenage girls Beth (Lynn Theel) and Sandy (Tarah Nutter) to go to the lake in the park with his friend Greg (Christopher S. Nelson). He stops his van at the gas station to fuel up and the owner, Joe Taylor (Jack Palance), advises them to not go to the park since is dangerous. However, they go, and Tom and Beth vanish. Greg and Sandy look for them and find their bodies in a shack with the bodies of the hunter, his son and the scoutmaster. They run to the van and drive to a bar, where the clients do not believe in Greg. Only the lunatic veteran of the Vietnam war, Fred 'Sarge' Dobbs (Martin Landau), gives credit to his words. Taylor arrives at the bar, and the mad Sarge believes that Greg and Sandy are alien. Taylor asks them to show where the shack is, since he believes the alien is a hunter and the corpses are his trophies. Now the alien hunter will become Taylor's pray.

"Without Warning" (1980) is a low-budget movie about an alien hunter seven years before "Predator" (1987). Unfortunately, the storyline is weak and not good, and the names of Jack Palance and Marttin Landau do not save the film. However, the premise was original in 1980 and worthwhile watching to satisfy the curiosity of the cinephiles. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Sem Aviso" ("Without Warning")

I ,too saw this at a So-Cal drive-in, twenty odd years back.We got there after the film started and one of my buddies remarked "Hey ,isn't that Larry Storch hanging on that hook in the shed?"....It truly was "Magic Time"...AIP provided some kooky, grisly ,over acted gems back then. Where fine , but seemingly "washed -up" actors Palance, Landau, Brand ,Mitchell could still be on the "Big Screen" and show their chops.I remember mostly dark foggy woods and scared kids , and Hey ,don't go in the house! This "AIP Movie Era" was sadly coming to a close and "Without Warning" is a great example of this late lamented(?)style of cinema.I can still hear Jack Palance screaming "ALIEN!!!!!"................sigh..

An alien has landed and it's killing innocent humans! Why, you ask? If you're looking for a feasible explanation like harvesting humans for food or cleaning off this planet for future alien use, forget it. Here the bad guy is just looking for a fun time hunting humans to add to his burgeoning trophy collection. Aiding in his sport are hairy, fanged little parasitic suction-cup Frisbees he flings at victims that drink their blood. The fun and gooey make-up FX are by Greg Cannon.

If the campy, silly plot isn't enough to get you tuned in, keep in mind it costars Jack Palance as a grizzled gas station owner, Cameron Mitchell as a sadistic hunter and an out-of-control Martin Landau as a ranting, raving, insane Vietnam vet! David (NYPD BLUE) Caruso also puts in an early appearance and the alien is played by giant Kevin Peter Hall, who went on the play the monster in the PREDATOR films.

Fun flick!

Score: 6 out of 10