This November, the Predator returns to the big-screen in Dan Trachtenberg’s Predator: Badlands. Since the release of the original film back in 1987, the alien trophy hunter has become a pop culture icon, appearing in films, comics, video games, t-shirts, lunchboxes, you name it. Pretty wild when you consider the disastrous design first conceived for the monster, before creature creator Stan Winston stepped in to save the day.
As much as I and other fans adore the Predator franchise, 1987 was not the first time we had seen a feature film revolving around a monstrous hunter from space. That concept arrived seven years earlier with Greydon Clark’s low-budget sci-fi horror film, Without Warning.
A Familiar Premise
While camping with a pair of friends, teenagers Sandy (Tarah Nutter) and Greg (Christopher S. Nelson) discover a shack full of dead bodies. Turns out, an alien has come to town for no other reason than to hunt humans for sport. The teens attempt to alert the authorities, but no one believes them. That is, no one except oddball gas station owner, Joe (Jack Palance), and an ex-military vet suffering from PTSD, Sarge (Martin Landau). If they don’t want to become the creature’s next trophies, they’ll have to work together to stop it.
An Old-School Sci-fi Horror Film
While John McTiernan’s Predator would transform Without Warning’s concept into an exhibition of muscle-bound machismo and action-packed spectacle, Clark’s film follows a more traditional, old-school horror formula. The director behind movies like Satan’s Cheerleaders and Uninvited, the filmmaker aims for “scary”. The degree to which he’s successful is about what you’d probably expect.
Without Warning plays like an average slasher. It opens on a father and son hunting trip, the unsuspecting victims picked off by an unseen assailant who tosses organic discs with teeth. Not long after, our teenage protagonists arrive at a gas station full of animal trophies. There, they meet Joe, brought to life by an unhinged Jack Palance performance. A hunter in his spare time, he takes on the role of your average harbinger, warning—for some odd reason—that the kids should stay away from the lake. Teens are going to teen, though, so they go anyway. Once there, the other teens split off from Sandy and Greg for a little exploration of each other. Apparently, the “have pre-marital sex and die” rule applies in space as well, because the alien promptly picks off the young lovers.
Limited by budget, Clark takes a less-is-more approach in an attempt to enhance the eerie atmosphere. Most kills happen off-screen. Rather than see the alien, legendary cinematographer Dean Cundey (Halloween) employs frequent POV shots of the creature lurking around the fog-shrouded forest like Jason Voorhees. Dan Wyman’s score implies horror around every corner. Bodies dripping green goop are found in a shack owned by the water department (so that’s why the water tastes funny!). It’s chills over thrills for all 90 minutes of Clark’s film.
Genre Icons Become the Hunted
Somehow, some way, Without Warning managed to cast heavyweights Jack Palance and Martin Landau, a pair of actors who could make a paper bag interesting. Good thing too, because the dialogue is sure to send you into unintended fits of laughter. Just wait until you witness Palance run at the creature, screaming, “alien!”. Or how about the line, “aliens ain’t human”. One classic after another that Palance and Landau manage to deliver with a straight face.
Both actors carry Without Warning on their backs through the film’s plodding narrative. Palance makes for a perfect harbinger before we had a name for the trope. You never quite know what you’re going to get from the character or what his angle is, only that he’s going to light up the screen every chance he gets. Meanwhile, Landau, standing over six feet tall and equipped with eyes that bug out of his skull, makes for an intimidating human antagonist who believes he’s in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In his view, the teens are the aliens. The two would later appear in Jack Sholder’s much better (and underrated) Alone in the Dark, but Without Warning gives a great taste of how well the pair works together.
Toothy Tools of the Trade
As for the alien and his deadly hobby, well, the line to Predator couldn’t be clearer. Played by none other than “guy in a suit” extraordinaire, Kevin Peter Hall—who would go on to play the Predator in the 1987 film—the monster is a towering terror. He lumbers around clad in netting, seven years before the Predator made it cool. Clark has suggested that his alien could also turn invisible, but, due to budget, we don’t see that. What we do see are tiny discs with teeth that the alien whips at victims. They’re a far cry from the advanced tech that the Predator throws around, but they get the job done. How, you ask? By latching onto prey like leeches and (somehow) causing bodies to go gooey. The alien hunter version of ketchup on your burger, I suppose.
Add in monster makeup master Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London) as another surprising name that Without Warning employs. In a short amount of time, Baker crafted the Megamind-looking alien head in his kitchen. An unsettling take on the standard grey men, the look would become the film’s selling point on posters. Unlike the Predator, with his clicks and voice mimicry, this alien’s the strong and silent type. He hardly makes a sound until the final moments, relying on Baker’s craftsmanship and Hall’s imposing figure to sell the terror. It works. To a point where I wish we saw more of him. He doesn’t do much of anything besides stand around and engage in staring contests with the protagonists.
Environmentalism Over Muscle-Bound Machismo
Predator improves on what was set forth by Without Warning in almost every way. But one area that I’d argue stands out above McTiernan’s film is the theme. Whereas Predator plays into manly brotherhood, Without Warning acts as a critique of macho masculinity. It interrogates the older generation’s belief that “hunting makes you a man”. That father and son from the opening scene? The dad needs to “shoot me something”, while his kid hates the idea of killing. Dad thinks that makes him weak. A similar battle of old vs young occurs when the teens first encounter ol’ Joe at his gas station and are disgusted by the animal trophies on his walls. He claims it’s a good sport, but they aren’t having it.
Then there’s the discussion around the government and Sarge’s belief that they “don’t do nothin’ about nothin’”. That includes taking care of vets. Sarge clearly suffers from PTSD, yet has been thrown away by a system that uses people for their service and spits them out. Released shortly after Nam, the frustration over the government’s treatment of its soldiers resonates through Sarge. For him, the alien is another invading enemy lurking in the trees. The nightmare he can’t forget. “No chance. No help. No escape.” That’s his motto. The tragic result of a damaged man who has been abandoned by everyone.
45 Years of Alien Hunter Terror
I often imagine how Predator would have turned out had Stan Winston never stepped in to re-design the alien from a disastrous, reptilian thing to the hulking beast we know now. Would it have had the same success and iconic status in our culture? Hard to say. But what I do know is that it wouldn’t exist if not for Without Warning. Clark’s largely forgotten film set the hunting grounds for what McTiernan would make bigger and better (by a long shot). In terms of execution and tone, the two films couldn’t be more different. But like that first creature to crawl out of the primordial ooze and eventually evolve into what would become life on Earth today, we wouldn’t have one without the other.
By no means am I declaring Without Warning a lost-in-space gem. But between an impressive crew of big-time talent, a great though poorly executed concept, and one memorable alien played by the late, great Kevin Peter Hall, it remains a fascinating curiosity. If you’re a fan of Predator or just appreciate old-school sci-fi horror, you’ll want to put on your hunting gear and track it down. Celebrating its 45th anniversary this year, Without Warning deserves long overdue credit as a stepping stone on the path that would lead to one of pop culture’s most renowned alien icons.
Categorized: Editorials
