Four teens—Beth, Tom, Sandy and Greg (Lynn Theel, David Caruso, Tarah Nutter and Christopher S. Nelson)—ignore creepy gas station owner Taylor (Jack Palance) when he warns them not to go up to the lake. They regret their decision when they find themselves stalked by a tall creature that flings deadly organic frisbees at them.As much as I admire John McTiernan's 1987 Arnie classic Predator, I have to admit that the film bears more than a passing resemblance to 1980 sci-fi/horror Without Warning. Not only is the plot suspiciously similar—an alien arrives on Earth to hunt humans—but the performer playing the extraterrestrial hunter is the very same person who played the Predator: 6'9" Kevin Peter Hall.Of course, Without Warning isn't the flawless, testosterone fuelled, action-fest that is Predator: for much of the time the plot goes nowhere, with the teen protagonists stumbling from one location to another pursued by both the dome-headed ET and a loopy, gun-toting ex-soldier, Fred 'Sarge' Dobbs (played to the hilt by Martin Landau); meanwhile, Taylor plans to kill the beast. There's some fun to be had from the wonky alien frisbees, which fly awkwardly through the air and sport burrowing tentacles and gnashing teeth, but a lot of the running time is spent with the characters doing just that: running.The film ends in a manner that is, once again, eerily similar to Predator: Taylor prepares a booby trap and lures the alien by shouting 'come on!'. Coincidence? I think not.6.5 out of 10 for the gloopy effects and Dean Cundey's great cinematography (unlike many a low budget horror, we can actually see what is going on in the dark), rounded down to 6 for killing off bikini babe Beth too quickly.

Having had a stint of viewing better-than-expect b-movies on youtube (blood beach, nightmare beach, primal rage) I was hoping to continue the trend with this film.However, I didn't like it at all. Terrible acting, story, directing etc etc. There really isn't anything good about it and it's not even one of those so-bad-it's-funny films (though the special effects for the small alien creatures is so bad it will raise a smirk).Some kids go to a lake where there happens to be an alien that is hunting humans. One of the crazy locals is aware of the alien but no one believes him. None of the characters are likable or enjoyable to watch which means it's a bore from beginning to end. Lots of running around and ineffective scares.

This movie had good actors in it. Martin Landau and Jack Palance, who were stars when they were younger and would go on to do better things when they were older. This was their "Working for Booze Money" phase, and it wasn't pretty, as they were both overacting in roles that were kind of silly. Also here- David Caruso before NYPD Blue and CSI Miami.The plot is that apparently an alien has taken to hunting people in a rural area. And Landau and Palance's characters are aware of this, trying to find a way to kill the monster. Meanwhile, a van full of horny teenagers shows up to be Monster bait. But the monsters are barely in the film.Oh, hey, Larry Storch from F-Troop is here. No one is entirely sure why. I think he was the comic relief, but it isn't funny when there's gore and a threat to children is implied. He and Caruso and others are victimized by the alien weapon, which is a flying disk with nasty tentacles. It's actually kind of a cool effect. Too bad it wasn't in a better movie.The flaw of this movie is that the characters do things that make not a lick of sense. Landau and Palance are introduced and then forgotten about for about half the movie. THe whole thing looks like it was shot in some rural town for the cost of box-tops.The alien is kind of creepy in that they follow the monster movie rule of not introducing your monster in full view until the last moment possible. Before that it's an ambivalent threat. It's like the film makers really did some things right but did a lot more very wrong.

Without Warning (1980)* 1/2 (out of 4) An all-star cast (with two future Oscar-winners) highlight this rather silly, low-budget science fiction movie about an alien stalking a small town where several people fall victim to its boomerang like flying smaller alien. Yes, this here is the film that features small alien creatures flying through the air, attaching themselves to people and basically chewing them up. If the IMDb trivia page is true then the budget of this thing was just $150,000 and half of that went to stars Jack Palance and Martin Landau. I don't know if that's really the budget but I was surprised to see how good the special effects actually were. The scenes of these creatures attaching themselves to people and eating them were quite good as were a few scenes where we see what's left of the bodies. With that said, just about everything else is pretty bad including the direction, which just doesn't bring any energy to what we're watching. There's never a sense of danger. There's never any drama and there's really not any characters to care about. The subplot of the four teenagers (including a young David Caruso) just doesn't add up to much. What makes the film barely worth watching are the veteran actors led by Palance and Landau. Palance pretty much plays the tough guy and Landau is the weird nut who always knew aliens would come. One of the highlights of the film was seeing the two of them and Neville Brand working together in a sequence. We even get to see Cameron Mitchell in a small scene and Ralph Meeker is here as well. As for the rest of the film, there's really not much that works here and add in the wrong long running time and WITHOUT WARNING is pretty forgettable.