The Plot: Mr. Johnathan (no last name needed) is a hairdresser, who loves the ladies. He essentially lays just about all of his clients, and is the man around town all the women folk are just dying to get their hands on. After sleeping with a gaggle of women to start our film, Johnathan apparently meets his match in Brenda the new receptionist at the salon. However, when Brenda’s old flame finds her things get real ugly. See, Brenda used to date the head of a crime family and now that he wants her back; it seems she’s going to have to leave the salon. Johnathan promises her he’ll protect her – and when the mob goons break into HIS salon and trash the place – things go from personal… to deadly!

The Review: I’m going to start this review off by offending many readers out there by asking a question: you ever hear that song by The Bloodhound Gang “I Wish I Was Queer, So I could Get Chicks”? The song is about a man who pretends to be a homosexual in order to hook up with women, so of course the ladies hang out with gay guys all day long – so if you could fool the ladies into thinking you in fact loved the fellas; you could conceivably play up the friend role before springing the “more than friends” role on her. Well, Black Shampoo apparently shows this line of thinking to not only be correct – but indeed the greatest idea man has ever possibly conceived. See, the character of Johnathan isn’t gay – doesn’t act gay – but his job? Way gay. When I think of hairdressers, generally the ones that I have known have all been so far out of the closet they are in the driveway. Get it? Closet… driveway… differrent area of the house?… regardless, this film has inspired me. I thought for a while there the reason I was getting no play from the ladies was simply because I don’t speak to them and when they approach me I can hardly mutter a coherent sentence. What has been missing though is a much easier fix. Hair cutting prowess! I wouldn’t know the difference between a beehive and a perm but that’s soon to change! I’ve enrolled at a beauty college and if this site is not here in three months time – you’ll know I’m rollin’ in the deep seas of feminine sexual deviancy! However, if I’m still here we can all assume I still have no life or ladies – such is the way things are.

However, no matter how much I look to prepare – I honestly don’t see myself getting the whole “black Lou Ferrigno” look that Mr. Johnathan carries so well. I mean really, if the guy was green he could have been The Hulk’s stunt double – just as long as he didn’t have to take his shirt off of course; as Johnathan isn’t quite as ripped as old Lou but he’s certainly a buff dude for sure. I might could sway that but my ability to grow an Afro is unlikely. The basic premise of Black Shampoo is a pretty insane one, about as insane as these past paragraphs – but even more insane. Mr. Johnathan essentially spends the first twenty minutes of the film nailing as many chicks as he possibly can and the height of awesome is reached as he visits a “customer” who is looking to get her hair fixed on a house call. So here’s good old Johnathan being greeted by the daughter of said “customer”, who both look impossibly young (I hope they were 18!). The girls take Johnathan by the ppol whilst flirting with him hard and heavy, before dropping the payload as they claim “you know, we’ve shared a guy before! Twice!”. Whoa nelly, we have liftoff! The girls begin to stick their head in his lap and rub his body down before Mommy Dearest comes out to bullwhip the girls for attacking their guest. Next thing to happen? Mommy’s lifting her dress and riding his lap by the pool in front of the girls to show them how it’s done. WHAT!? How can this not be a porno? Soon enough, once the mob gets involved however – all the fun stuff comes to a halt. Then we get the violence! Okay, well, there’s a lot of set-up before the conclusion to the film but by the end of this process we’re treated to some fun stuff such as a hair curler shoved right up someone’s anus! Does it get much better than that? I think not!

I’ve read good and I’ve read bad aboutBlack Shampoo. Director Greydon Clark has some less than notable films under his belt, but ever since seeing his film The Bad Bunch I have been very interested in his work. Black Shampoo solidifies my view of him. Whether it’s bad, good, well meaning, exploitive – Greydon Clark makes interesting films. That doesn’t mean they’re going to be Godfather II, but his drive-in flare seems to hit all the right notes with me. I gave a pretty flamingly bad review for The Bad Bunch a few years back but I’ve grown to appreciate it over time – and Black Shampoo caught my liking with just the first viewing. It is by no means a “great”, you can read this review and figure out we’re talking exploitation here and you won’t be sucked in over the mesmorizing character development – but it gets the job done. John Daniels plays the character of Johnathan with enough flare that he isn’t mundane and turns out to be a lot of fun. Tany Boyd helps stabalize the film in the leading female role and is probably the strongest of the performances – but I watch the film and I see Greydon Clark and I see a film that makes me happy. It’s goofy, it’s fun and we all know Johnathan isn’t even talkative enough to be such a beloved individual with all of womenkind – but who cares; all the more reason to enjoy the work. You might think I’m crazy, giving the film a four out of five – when for some reason it’s a two out of ten on the IMDB – but if you like your drive-in exploitation as genre-dependent as they come then this will leave you entertained and then some. Seriously though, a two out of ten? What ARE the people on that site smoking?