Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers

With its tongue firmly planted in its cheek, this camp B-movie horror, by Fred Olen Ray, manages to be fairly infectious fun, delivering everything one could wish for in a movie with such a delightfully trashy title: a ridiculously silly plot, a half dozen women willing to strip off in front of the camera, some crap special effects (plastic body parts and a few gallons of fake blood), and a running time just short enough to ensure that the film doesn't outstay its welcome.

Jay Richardson plays Jack Chandler, a sleazy private-eye searching for missing teenager Samantha (Linnea Quigley). During the course of his investigations, he meets Mercedes (Michelle Bauer), a sexy, but murderous hooker, and subsequently discovers the existence of a chainsaw worshipping cult, led by The Stranger, (Gunnar Hansen).

With its deliberately cheesy film-noir voice-over, some very bad comedy, frequent nudity from scream queens Quigley and Bauer, and some daft OTT power-tool dismemberment, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers isn't as unwatchable as the title suggests. If you're in the mood for a spot of unpretentious low-budget fun, then check out this entertaining 80s cult classic.

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.

A cult of chainsaw-worshipping prostitutes headed over by pleasantly plump guru "The Master"(Gunnar "Leatherface" Hansen") are out to make human sacrifices to their god "Anubis" and cut into poor guys just looking for a good time. Jay Richardson (very funny here) is dry, thick-witted detective Jack Chandler, who's searching for a young runaway (Linnea Quigley) and stumbles onto the cult. The film is played out as both a spoof of film noir (with some Columbo/Perry Mason-style detective shows thrown in) AND horror films (naturally THE TEXA S CHAINSAW MASSACRE), and it actually succeeds! Of course, you also have to be willing to deal with some bad lighting and grainy photography associated with budget restraints, but that's forgivable, I think.

I agree with the mention of choreography--this has two hilarious (and damn sexy) dance sequences with Michelle Bauer and Linnea Quigley in the buff (the latter doing the "Virgin Dance of the Double Chainsaws"), that should please their fans. Richardson is a howl and Hansen gets a few funny moments in there as well, though he's not nearly as animated as the leading ladies or Richardson. Nearly every line of dialogue is extremely campy and whoever scripted this thing has a playful ear for puns and wordplay. There's also plenty of blood/gore (I think Steve Johnson did some of it), a few AIRPLANE-style gags and a great mock- Elvis song for Michelle to dance to. In short, a must see for fans of B-movies and probably Fred Olen Ray's finest hour.

Score: 7 out of 10.

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.

This is the Fred Olen Ray of his golden era, before start making soft core skinnemax flicks. An homage to The Chainsaw Texas Massacre, with the original Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) and a chainsaw duel between two eighties b-movie goddess. What more do you want? Some gore? you got it. Cheese? this is beyond cheese. Fred Olen Ray is a b-movie fan and here he delivers entertainment from a fan to all the fans. Hope he come back to make this kind of stuff. Im a big fan of his old stuff like this one, like Evil Toons and all that kind of stuff. OK, the eighties are gone i understand it but the spirit of it can live. I heard that he will make a sequel to this movie. Hope so.