The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher

Unapologetically lowbrow sleaze, and pretty potent to boot, "Hollywood Strangler" is an undervalued keyhole-peek at raging lustmord and urban decay. Similar to the 50s classic DAUGHTER OF HORROR in its dialog-free presentation, the film is largely narrated through the inner-thoughts of a diabolical madman...his warped mind surging with rabid hatred of females which drives him to strangle. And strangle again...and again...

By and by, he becomes intrigued by a staunch female bookshop clerk who, unbeknownst to him, is a serial killer as well. With switchblade in-hand, she helps to rid the L.A. streets of the drunks and degenerates she so passionately detests. The eventual collision of these two psychotic personas results in a most unnerving tango.

Ingenious use of dingy backstreet locations is beneficial to the asphalt-and-pavement grittiness of this film, the camera leering voyeuristically upon smut-theater marquees and random profligate sluts tramping about in booby-buster tanktops and cheek-peek short-shorts. Ultra-minimalist cinema defined...a shining star on the index of one of filmdom's most peripheral figures.

7/10

Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher, The (1979)

** (out of 4)

From the man who brought you THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED-UP ZOMBIES comes another film with a rather interesting title. What we basically have is a nutty guy (Pierre Agostino) who hires cheap women to take photos of them but what he really wants is to strangle them, which he does plenty of. We also have the "Skid Row Slasher" who is a mystery person stalking the streets and stabbing homeless men in the neck. For those interested, the Hollywood Strangler has a lot more victims here and I'd say he has about a 3-to-1 advantage, which I'm going to guess is due to the budget reasons. I guess it was a lot cheaper to hire some woman to get naked than it was setting up a special effect where an actor had to spit out blood after being stabbed. So, is this a good movie? Not at all but when you compare it to other Steckler movies I have no problem saying this comes off as a masterpiece. The budget was so low that Steckler actually shot the film silent and later went back and added narration. Some of the dialogue is downright hilarious due to the various things the killer says. The highlight has to be a scene where he suffocates a woman with a pillow while asking if she's seen the Doris Day flick PILLOW TALK. Those who enjoy the sleazy cinema will be pleased to see a wide range of trashy posters hanging up in the various sets. These posters include TEENAGE MASSAGE PARLOR and several other films and we even get a lot of great shots from the sleazier areas of Los Angeles where there's apparently a porn theater showing DEEP THROAT around every corner or a place selling dirty magazines. Seeing these now gone places is a tad bit interesting and especially if you're interested in those type of grindhouse flicks. The film has very little story as all we get is one scene after another of women taking their clothes off and being strangled. Every once in a while we see a homeless man get slashed and that's pretty much it, although the director does go off the deep end towards the end and adds a love story. The identity of the Skid Row Slasher is meant to be a mystery but anyone should figure it out. The amount of sleaze going on in this film is pretty high as there's countless nudity and blood and it's almost enough to make the film worth sitting through. If you're offended by this type of material then it's best you stay away but those looking for cheap entertainment should get a few kicks out of this thing but even at under 70-minutes the thing goes on way too long.

Hollywood, 1979. It doesn't get much sleazier than this.

Jonathan Click (perhaps a long lost brother of Mad Dog Click?) is a pigeon petting loner whose bitter memories of some girl named Marcia lead him to strangle hot young "models" in Hollywood. At the same time, frumpy used bookstore owner Carolyn Brandt is getting sick and tired of all the winos who stumble into her store to swig from their bottles, so she rams a switchblade into their throats. Jonathan becomes infatuated with Carolyn and spends much of the film stalking her around Hollywood. When he gets up the nerve to go into her store, they spend a silent eternity staring at each other over the racks of three ring binders and LPs for sale, but never speaking. When Carolyn isn't knifing bums or staring into space with a never-changing expression of boredom mixed with slight gassiness on her face, she's running up and down the beach in an unflattering jogging suit. There's no police work here, no world weary detectives trying to catch Jonathan or Carolyn before they can strike again, just two mediocre killers going about their daily routines. But, there's also a lot of gratuitous nudity provided by some halfway pretty girls, so it's not a total loss for those who enjoy a little T&A.

This is one of Steckler's most depressing films, and I'm not sure if it's the lack of dialog, the repetitive "action" or the subject matter that makes it so. Maybe Ray was just in a crappy mood that week. Fans of his early films - Rat Pfink, Incredibly Strange Creatures and Thrill Killers - may be disappointed with this one, but the commentary by Joe Bob Briggs on the newly released DVD version is very enjoyable, funny and informative and makes the film much more bearable.

At this point in his filmmaking career, Ray Dennis Steckler had become obsessed with making his movies for as little money as possible. What he does here is an amusing study in minimalist filmmaking. It doesn't matter if it wouldn't exactly have been up for any Oscars, it remains a curious, watchable oddity for its mercifully brief 71 minute running time. As one might guess, there's not a whole lot of story here. The movie concerns two characters who we know are destined to come together at some point. Pierre Agostino is The Hollywood Strangler, a photographer by trade who's come to regard his models and other assorted young women as "bad" and in need of punishment. Yeah, we've seen guys like him in movies like this before. Carolyn Brandt, Steckler's ex-wife and frequent collaborator, is the other character whom we follow around, a bookstore employee who, when she's not staring off into space or jogging on the beach, is offing drunken bums with her handy switchblade. It's only a matter of time before these two like minded individuals are going to make the move of introducing themselves to one another. In the meantime, it's important to note that Steckler wasn't too interested in using microphones, so he filmed this as a virtual silent movie, a bold move for any exploitation film made during this time period. (Stock) music, sound effects, dialogue and narration were all added later. And what a hoot that narration is, hilariously written and hilariously performed, adding some spice to a leisurely paced pile of cinematic trash. The major point of interest with this thing is viewing it as a series of snapshots of a particular place - Hollywood Boulevard and its series of adult businesses - during a specific era, in this case, the late 1970s. That's really what makes it fascinating, although what's good for a great deal of entertainment are Agostino's expressions and Brandt's *lack* of expressions. Adventuresome sleaze lovers are certain to find this an acceptable diversion; others beware. It comes complete with numerous breast shots, shots of legs kicking as female victims get killed, various sexy outfits, and a generous helping of that endearingly tacky bright red movie blood. Seven out of 10.

"The Hollywood Strangler Meets The Skid Row Slasher" (catchy title!) is probably the most plot-free movie I've ever seen. Some dude kills a prostitute, some lady kills a hobo, back to the dude and he's still killing prostitutes, back to the lady and she's still killing hobos, back to the dude...well, you get the idea. None of it goes anywhere, it's like you're stuck in an endless loop. Every death scene also looks exactly the same, particularly in the skid row slasher parts. And yet, somehow someway, I didn't hate this completely. There's something about it here and there that's strangely entertaining. Maybe it's the fact that it was all recorded without sound (in 1979!?), which leaves plenty of gaps that have to be filled with the strangler's inadequate narration. This narration is completely stream of consciousness and makes absolutely no sense. After he smothers some chick with a pillow he quips "wonder if she saw that movie Pillow Talk". All the other narration is 120% serious to the max, so that line just downright broke me. I also loved the absurdity of the book store scenes: personally I've been drunk at a lot of different places, but getting hammered at the book store? That was the party place in the 1970s? It also helps the hilarity that the book store has about two dozen books, maximum. Maybe I was also slightly entertained because this was made with the dirtiest, sleaziest, cheapest 16mm film stock available, which I'm just a sucker for. I could watch anything (ANYTHING) made with that kind of film, but I won't give examples on what anything may include. This movie is really bad and boring, but it's so bad and boring that I became hypnotized with it. Save yourself that trouble and don't watch it.