He's bad, he's mean, he's a lovin' machine! When he's mad, he's mean, he's a killing machine!

So states the tagline of Greydon Clark's 1976 blaxploitation film, Black Shampoo. This one differs from your standard 'formula' blaxploitation movie. Rather than portray the main protagonist as a pimp or a private eye or a dope dealer or some sort of street tough, this time out he's a successful businessman. In fact, Mr. Jonathan (played by John Daniels of Candy Tangerine Man and Flesh Eating Mothers) is a hairdresser. That's right, he's a hairdresser. But not just any hairdresser. You see the secret to Mr. Jonathan's success isn't due so much to his skills with a blow-dryer and a comb so much as it has to do with his skills below the waist if you know what I mean and I think you do, you randy cat.

At any rate, Mr. Jonathan's new secretary, Brenda St. John (the foxy Tanya Boyd of Roots, Black Heat, and Ilsa – Harem Keeper Of The Oil Sheiks!), has found herself in some hot water. Her former employer decides he wants her back. He sends a few thugs over to mess with Mr. Jonathan's shop and rough up his employees a little bit. Soon, after Brenda and Mr. Jonathan have made sweet, sweet love together, those same thugs bust up the salon and good. Brenda decides to go back to her former boss so that he'll leave Mr. Jonathan and his employees alone.

Obviously, Mr. Jonathan is a little worked up over this so he heads on up to his shanty-town cabin in the woods to shoot some pool (?). Eventually Brenda heads on up that way to reunite with her one true love but the bad guys follow her and she leads them right to Mr. Jonathan's weekend getaway. He's no sissy though, and he fires up his chainsaw to take care of business and show those SOB's what happens when you push a hairdresser one step too far.

Wow. Is this movie ever silly. Within the first half hour of the film, studly Mr. Jonathan has made it with five different women and by this point you're kind of wanting the movie to get one with it as it's not really working out so well as a sexploitation film. Once Brenda heads on out though and our heroic hairstylist moves up to his mountain hideaway, the action gets turned up a few serious notches and things turn around in a big way.

For an obviously very low budget movie, director Greydon Clark doesn't do a bad job of making it look like it cost a whole lot more. He was able to secure some fancy sets to shoot on and he shot the Sunset Strip footage without permits (they didn't have the money for them) to give the film a more upscale look, adding to Mr. Jonathan's swanky image. Daniels does a great job on the lead. Even if he shows about as much emotion as Dolph Lundgren is capable of, he certainly looks the part and he really does do quite well in the action scenes. He's big enough and tough enough looking that you can believe he'd be able to kick as much ass as he does in the film's blood soaked finale. He's able to deliver the ham fisted dialogue with a straight face, which leads to a few moments of humor throughout the film – whether or not it was intentional or not is hard to say, but it is there.

So while it takes a while to get going, the film has enough seventies swagger and enough action in the last half hour of the film to make this one well worth a look for those who enjoy the oddball factor that low budget blaxploitation movies were somehow able to deliver back in the decadant decade of disco.

Video:

VCI's 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer of Black Shampoo is actually very impressive. The colors are rich and bold, the black levels are strong and cool, and there are no mpeg compression issues at all. While there are a few scenes that have a bit of edge enhancement, it doesn't dominate the entire film. Print damage is noticeable in a couple of scenes but when you do see it, it's only in the form of specks and a little bit of dirt – there are no major defects with the image at all on this transfer and it looks far, far better than I expected it to look.