Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers

"Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers" is one of the best examples of those trashy, cheesy, horror/spoofs of the 80s (Toxic Avenger and Blood Diner would be included in there as well) that I so fondly adore. The movie is short, sweet, and to the point but I enjoyed every excruciatingly bad B-movie moment, which by the way, is accompanied by the corniest one-liners you've ever heard since Freddy Krueger. Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers concerns (what else?) a cult of chainsaw massacring babes who use fresh limbs from their victims to serve to their "master" (I'm assuming this is where Gunnar Hansen comes in). And boy does he look embarrassed. One classic scene involves a nude Michelle Bauer messily hacking up some poor old sap while listening to Elvis Prestley. The look on her face is priceless. Blood, a wooden Gunnar Hansen, laughs aplenty, cheesy rock music, scream queens Michelle Bauer and Linnea Quigley (her shining moment is the "dance of the double chainsaws!") all wrapped into one...don't miss it.

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.

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.

One of the auteur Olen Ray's finest works is this little gem. It features two of the Eye Candy Hall of Fame All-Century team members, Linnea Quigley and Michelle Bauer. Every synopsis or review seems to contain the words camp, horror-comedy, and gore. While it is all that, we would like to comment on the nifty dance numbers. The auteur Olen Ray has added some eye-popping choreography which allows Ms. Quigley and Ms. Bauer to put their bodies in motion. The sultry Ms. Quigley performs the Virgin Dance of the Double Chainsaws. We fell like a virgin Brazilian rainforest watching her. The majestic beauty Ms. Bauer does a striptease to an Elvis tune that is pure graceland. Proving she ain't no hound dog, Ms. Bauer's character will take you to Heartbreak Hotel but that's alright. As a word of warning, you might feel like a giant Redwood as you view this film, but both these ladies wield a wicked chainsaw and can cut you down to size.