Black Shampoo

And we are back, ladies and gents. Hope you are enjoying President's Day, getting some decent savings on furniture, automobiles and apparently pizza sales. Today's moving pictures hails from Blaxploitation of what appears to be the sleazier side of it. Yes this is no Shaft or Black Belt Jones but more of a near porn variety if the opening theme music is to be believed. Back from Greydon Clark's basement (Angels' Revenge, Hi-Riders, Joysticks, Final Justice, The Uninvited, The Forbidden Dance and Mad Dog Coll) hails the tagline: "He's Bad... He's Mean... He's a Lovin' Machine. This is Black Shampoo a.k.a. Sex at the Salon.

This naked make out aids in the hair drying?

From the man that brought Satan's Cheerleaders, this cheesy sleazy exploitation of Mr. Johnathan (John Daniels of Tender Loving Care, The Candy Tangerine Man, Bare Knuckles, Mean Dog Blues and Flesh-Eating Mothers) runs a salon and apparently is a gigolo. Guess he styles the hair then messes in up in a sweaty, moaning fashion. Are they paying extra for the sex? Honestly I don't know. Dude looks like a genetic experiment of James Earl Jones crossed with Lou Ferrigno. Couple that with most of his filmography titles sound like gay porn titles, minus Flesh-Eating Mothers of course.

Our opus opens with saxophone, bass and enough wah wah pedal I am checking around that I didn't conjure the ghost of John Holmes.  No sooner does Mr. Johnathan finish scrubbing this pent up white girl's hair, it is alluded she starts blowing him. Yeah, I'm sure it was plot related somehow.  No we do not see that scene. Thankfully.   Oh goody, gay stereotypes like Artie (Skip E. Lowe of Crazy Mama, Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks, Bare Knuckles, Bitter Heritage and Prime Suspect)and Richard (Gary Allen of Joshua and Black Shampoo)and they're giggly and fabulous. Grrr...

Mongo like candy.

Secretary Brenda (Tanya Boyd of Isl, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks, Roots, GoodTimes, The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood, Sanford Loving, Lulu and Days of Our Lives) knows the ins and outs of the business but she's not one to gossip. Kind of Effie to Johnathan's Sam Spade if you will.

With an emergency "hair appointment" at the request of Mrs. Simpson (Heather Leigh of Sexual Ecstasy of the Macumba, Mafia Girls, Black Shampoo, Special Delivery and Hot Nasties) Johnathan may have taken in more than he bargained for. As he heads out, some mafia goons head into the salon and have a chat with Brenda. One would conclude her former employer Mr. Wilson (Joseph Carlo of Satan's Cheerleaders and Black Shampoo) wasn't too happy of her taking off. And that damn kid Dennis is always knocking baseballs through his window too.

After a bit of gay bashing (they tossed Artie and Richard around), head thug tells Brenda she better call 'da boss or people will really get hurt.

Johnathan is being hit on profusely by teens. Seriously the double entendres are so blatant, they're actually painful. "Oh that's a big tool. I bet you're really handy with it." Stay classy, movie.

Mrs. Simpson's gonna teach these girls a lesson. By grinding on Mr. Johnathan. Hmm, this might be a softcore porn flick.   Brenda tells Johnathan she has to go, so he takes out to dinner.  Brenda baby, don't fall for that. Mr. Johnathan's probably got more STDs than James Kirk or at least near to it.

Brenda hasn't called quick enough for Mr. Big there so hired goons go trash the salon to kooky circus like music. Yeah, I was delighted too. Ugh, bring back the mindless booty call scenes now.

Got my roscoe trained on ya, see?

Eventually Johnathan is tired of his place of business thrashed and Brenda being scared so Johnathan is on the case. He's almost Shaft... kinda. Maybe. His cruising music must have been stuck on the interpretive jazz station.

Brenda goes back to Mr. Wilson and he humbly apologizes for the shop getting torn up and says to submit damage bills to him. Yeah that's the least you can do, sucka. No, that line wasn't in the film. Should have been. His thugs raz Johnathan, he pimp slaps one down, one gets it in the planter's and thug number three remembered he has a gun. Wow, brains on a knuckle dragger. Well to console his broken heart, Johnathan goes and plows a client like the back 40.

Brenda gets the goods on Mr. Wilson and goes to Johnathan for protection. HAIR DRESSER! Not a P.I., not a cop, ex-cop, ex-military!!! Not that I would know. We get literally no backstory with this dude aside from he does hair and the owners of said hair. I have a new name for his place, "The Primp, Crimp and Pump!"

With a big showdown with the thugs, Johnathan show them a thing or two. WITH A CHAINSAW??!!! WTF??!!!

Okay let's talk about the issues I have with this film. A few N bombs and gay bashing aside, the women are written like brain dead bimbos that only Johnathan can satisfy, the thugs are barely believable as humans and frankly the double entendres got damn childish.

The technical problems? Blocking scenes is real tough, camera won't focus from foreground to background, clothes, towels constantly moving around from scene to scene so continuity is in the toilet and at some point during a shower sex scene, the fricking sound dies out, soundtrack and all. The editing looks like it was done by a diarrhetic howler monkey. It's shit!

Finally recognized another actor as "New Receptionist" (Jacqulin Cole of Satan's Sadists, The Female Bunch, Angel's Revenge, Wacko and Joysticks). Not exactly filling with joy but I suppose it was a minor mental exercise. This is gory, goofy and girly bouncing of epic proportion.

For who I would recommend this to? Um college kids wanting a good drinking game. Naked jiggly girl? Drink. Not every film of this genre can be Three the Hard Way or Shaft but at least this wasn't Dolemite.

Weirdest Craigslist orgy ever.