Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers

This is a movie which actually lives up to the promise of its title, which is saying quite a lot. Its a horror comedy about a private eye who is prone to saying things like 'being a dick is a 24-hour-a-day job'. He is investigating a series of murders, which are of course the work of the Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, of which scream queens Linnea Quigley and Michelle Bauer are prominent members. There's lots of blood and even more nudity on display here, with some dumb humour on hand to pad things out further. Quigley and Bauer are definitely fun to watch. The whole thing is an entertaining bit of trashy low budget 80's fun which delivers what it says on the tin.

I wholeheartedly agree with earlier reviewers that said this movie is one of the best of its genre--unfortunately that genre is worthless crap. This is an early example of horror/comedy "scream queen" movies, featuring two of the more ubiquitous screams queens Michelle Bauer and Linnaea Quigley, and directed by one of the pioneers of these kind of films (along with Dave DeCoutea and Jim Wynorski)--Fred Olen Ray. This movie, however, is surprisingly creative and long on plot, and it actually has more than one set and a budget that approaches whole numbers. It is also genuinely funny in places.

These kind of films were largely inspired by the 70's Roger Corman-produced films like "Hollywood Boulevard" or "Caged Heat" (Jim Wynorski actually got his start with Corman--thank's a lot, Roger), but there's a good reason many of the directors of those films went onto bigger and (usually) better things while the three amigos here have kept doing this same thing year after year. There's a big difference between seriously making schlocky films that nevertheless demonstrate real talent, and just mugging your way through self-consciously campy "cult films" in attempt to disguise a total lack of it. Olen Ray, at least, has a genuine love of film which shows in some of his best work (Wynorski, as he himself brags in every interview, is more interested in improving his own dating life than in making good movies, while the openly gay DeCouteau is just a hack by any standard).

As for the "scream queens", Quigley and Bauer, they certainly camp it up as usual, but make enough of effort that they seem more like genuine actresses than strippers here. This is the kind of the movie that really floats to the top of the HUGE pool of worthless crap movies that have been churned out since the early 80's, but it also, mind you, doesn't quite float ABOVE that pool. If you like these kinds of movies, of course, you won't want to miss it. And for everyone else?--well, you could do worse, I guess.

Fred Olen Ray was the reigning emperor of trashy low-budgeted B-movies during the late 1980's, so with his reputation and a fabulous title like "Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers", this movie was destined to become a cult classic even long before anyone had seen it! The film is quite bad, of course, but also irresistibly charming, effectively tongue-in-cheek and massively entertaining in case you dig campy and brainless horror guff. Writer/director Fred Olen Ray and his entire ensemble cast noticeably had copious amounts of fun with this production, and there's no reason we shouldn't have either, thanks to the light-headed atmosphere, plentiful of gratuitous nudity, amateurish gore and a handful of hilarious and inventive gags. Jay Richardson pretends to be a bona fide Humprey "Maltese Falcon" Bogart in his role of chain-smoking and deep voice narrating private detective Jack Chandler. He's looking for a runaway teenage girl named Samantha (Linnea Quigley, who was 30 at the time) in the raunchy and perilous streets of Los Angeles. Jack crosses paths with a dangerously crazy cult of which the members are prostitutes worshiping the chainsaw and hacking up their customers' bodies in front of their spiritual leader. The latter is none other than Gunnar "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" Hansen; who will presumably remain personified with chainsaw horror until his dying days. Jack fears that Samantha needs to be rescued from the cult, but the girl has her own personal and hidden agenda. At times, "Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers" is a little bit tedious and intolerably cheap, but throughout most of the (relatively short) running time it's a successful parody and trash flick. You can't but chuckle with certain dialogs and situations, like Hansen's extended speech bringing an ode to the chainsaw, and the grotesque nude massacre sequences are downright hilarious. This film that is also partially responsible for the huge popularity of B-movie actresses/scream queens Linnea Quigley and Michelle Bauer. In what's arguably the best scene of the entire movie, Michelle Bauer dances naked to the tunes of an Elvis Presley song with a gigantic chainsaw in her hands. She mangles her hapless victim, but not before carefully protecting a poster of her singer idol with plastic wrapping. Classic! Definitely not recommended for about 99% of the world's population, but compulsory viewing for avid cult/horror fanatics.

Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers is a definite cult movie. There's a chainsaw in the title, so I guess Fred Olen Ray, the director, decided to cast Gunnar Hansen. Hansen was better as Leatherface, in this he just stands there and seems very inanimate. I liked this movie for what it is, a definite attempt at cult status. I think Olen Ray's Soroeity Babes In The Slime Bowl-A-Rama is a better film however.

To say that this is Fred Olen Ray's best film doesn't quite cover it. It's the only half-way decent movie he ever made. The movie has - gasp! - actual characters you can tell apart from a block of wood, and doesn't spend - gasp! - over an hour of screen time showing said characters running around doing nothing. Furthermore - gasp! - the script is cheesy and entertaining in the best way, filled with ridiculous one liners and double entendres in a spoof of film noir.

The guy who plays the main character, "Jack Chandler", actually has a face and manner to suit the hard boiled detective, and the movie also benefits from the scream queen double bill of the beautiful Michelle Bauer and Linnea Quigley. Genre fans will appreciate Gunnar Hansen's appearance in another movie to do with chainsaws, though his "performance" makes you wish he'd stuck with the mask and apron.

The plot is something to do with a chainsaw worshipping cult from ancient Egypt - no kidding - who cut people up to sacrifice them to their deity. Bauer has a great nude scene as one of the hardware worshiping minions, hacking a guy up and getting her beautiful naked body sprayed with fake blood. She is so sexy right from her first appearance in the movie, in which she happens to be clothed, that it makes you wish other starlets in b-flicks could study her performance and realise it's about more than just taking your top off.

Linnea Quigley is also fantastic as the good girl gone bad, the role she was usually most comfortable in.

If you're a fan of b-horror movies and haven't seen this one, it's well worth checking out. It's typically low key and low budget, but the starlets light up the screen, and it's entertaining throughout.