“He was a burn-out anyway.”

Drake’s rating: There’s even a highway to it

Drake’s review: So here’s a conundrum: What do you do if you somehow make a little parody flick that gets much more attention than you maybe figured on, while at the same time that film, in your own words*, turns you into into an “accidental porn pioneer?”

Well, if you’re Jason Williams, the star of the sci-fi/comedy/nudie romp Flesh Gordon**, you just keep on keepin’ on, man. Because what else are you going to do?

And for Williams, that meant continuing to make movies and working in all sorts of roles on both sides of the camera. He continued to act, of course, but he also directed, produced, edited, scouted locations and did whatever else it took to keep going in the film biz. There’s no doubt that the man kept busy.

Then in the late 1980s, much to my own delight and the no doubt eternal consternation of Justin, Williams decided to produce and star in a series of biker flicks. That’s right. A series. Not one biker flick. Not two. No, in all he ended up making five biker movies, each one of which I am in the process of tracking down. Because there’s no world in which I don’t review five biker films starring Flesh Gordon. My destiny is set in stone.

The first of these flicks is, of course, The Danger Zone, which has precisely zero input from Kenny Loggins yet manages to embrace the brainless yet entertaining experience that the films relying on his music were known for. Granted, there are no jets here, and no teens bringing the joy of dancing to small town America, but we do have an all-girl band that has won a trip to Las Vegas to compete in a musical competition. They’re all cuter than Kevin Bacon and none of them are writing checks their bodies can’t cash, so right off the bat things are looking good.

Things are looking somewhat less good for our band when their car breaks down. This forces them to trek through the desert, frolic in a lake, and rescue a dog before finding a few old buildings to take shelter. The bad news is that those buildings are the hideouts for a gang of bikers who smuggle drugs through the area.

The good news is that the bikers aren’t home, because they’re currently at a bar watching another biker named Wade (Williams) beat up a couple of cops who had come there to arrest him. This bit of martial prowess so impresses the bikers that they let Wade join up with them on the spot, never once even thinking that Wade might be an undercover cop himself. Because what are the odds of that?

Pretty high, as it turns out. Which puts Wade in a bit of a pickle once he and the biker gang head out to their dwelling in the desert only to find a bunch of girls hanging out in the clubhouse. So now Wade has to surreptitiously protect the band while at the same time gathering the evidence he needs to bust the bikers for their drug-smuggling activities. It’s going to be a busy day for an erstwhile ‘80s action hero!

The Danger Zone is a very ‘80s biker flick. Although many of the plot elements are lifted whole cloth from similar movies from the previous decade, they’re treated with a much lighter tone and the skeevier subjects common to the genre are generally played down or eliminated altogether. Williams, who was also one of the film’s writers, takes his experience as a 1970s exploitation movie veteran and does a pretty good job of updating the biker film for a new audience. It’s still a low-budget experience, of course, but that’s just part of the charm.

Is The Danger Zone mandatory biker movie viewing? Well, obviously! I mean, where else can you find Flesh Gordon leading an all-girl band in a furious gunfight against a nefarious biker gang? And all without any of them getting their perfect ‘80s hair even slightly mussed.

Hair spray in the ‘80s really was something else.

*The name of Jason Williams’ autobiography is “I Was Flesh Gordon: Fighting the Sex Ray and Other Adventures of an Accidental Porn Pioneer,” written with Derek McCaw. It’s quite the entertaining look back at low-budget filmmaking in the ‘70s.

**I’d ask Justin if I could review this one, but I’m already in the Mutant Doghouse. Literally. I had to move out of the Mutant Basement to make room for a new shipment of government cheese.

Intermission!

• I have no idea who Henry Vernon is, but this is the director’s only film credit in any capacity. I like to think he just wandered onto the set on the first day of filming, sat down in the director’s chair and everyone just listened to him from then on.
• These are very generic bikers. No club name, no cuts and no patches. I think they just got their clothes from the biker aisle at their local K-Mart.
• The bikers are driving down the Las Vegas strip in a zebra-striped convertible. These are NOT serious bikers.
• Running through rattlesnakes as an Olympic sport? Never say never.
• Smuggling drugs by RC plane. What they lack in volume they make up for in fuel savings.
• You’re out in the middle of the desert, so of course an old prospector shows up!
• Rattlesnake 1, Bikers 0
• The prospector is not named Woody, but I am convinced that he’s woken up with a snake in his boot.