Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (20th Anniversary Edition) 1988 Retromedia Entertainment   Buy It Now

There are two types of bad cinema. You have the movies where the director is full of themselves and thinks that they have created a masterpiece when in fact, they have made absolute garbage. This would be something that could be attributed to none other that Uwe Boll, a hack of a director with the all the talent and vision of a dirty cat box who is under the belief that somehow challenging directors and critics to boxing matches will prove how great he is. Then you have cinema that is intentionally horrible, and so bad that you can help but want to watch it.

Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers falls into the second category. The title alone should point to one single fact; bad cinema. The location; Los Angeles, the prime location for chainsaw wielding hookers, and here we find a private detective, Jack Chandler (Jay Richardson) who is looking for Samantha Kelso (Linnea Quigley), a runaway teenager. There have also been a series of unexplained murders resulting in dismembered bodies but even the police don’t have much to go on. Chandler soon finds that his runaway teen connects to these bizarre murders and its leader (Gunner Hansen), an ancient cult, and an even older Egyptian ritual.

A good film Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers definitely isn’t, and in a number of ways the movie seems to be drawing heavily on some plot elements of another schlock classic, Blood Feast. What the two definitely have in common though is that they are just that; pure schlock, and that’s something of a forgotten art form these days as directors want to be taken seriously, actresses want to keep their clothes on, and any attempts to recapture the magic of bad cinema from days gone by falls short of becoming the cult classics we used to see.

In an effort to offset itself and avoid being “just another horror movie,” Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers works in its detective story element. It attempts to imitate the same approach that you’d find in movies of the 40’s and 50’s, complete with Chandler giving his narrative on the events, and this also brings in the hilarious line of “being a dick is a 24-hour a day job.” The acting in the movie is horrible, actually it’s beyond horrible, the audio is terrible, the music is forgettable, the visual effects are laughable, but Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, being released at the end of the 80’s, includes something that is yet another forgotten element of cinema.

So, what exactly might that be? Boobs and blood, and in a heavy does. I think there actually might be more full frontal nudity than there is blood, but that’s just fine. While I’ve often commented in reviews that this combination doesn’t make for a good or memorable movie, this would be in relation to movies that are trying to interweave the two in order to make their production better. Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers was filmed for under $100,000, and it’s obvious from the start of the movie that this isn’t one to be taken seriously. Boobs and blood are really the only two things that the movie has going for it, though the corny dialog is good for a laugh or two, and not because it’s funny either. There are some terrible one-liners in the movie, so expect to hear them in There’s also the brilliant acting of Gunner Hansen, but no matter how bad he is, you have to give him credit that when asked to reprise the role of Leatherface in the Texas Chainsaw remake, he declined, stating that he was insulted by the fact that the original was even being remade.

Before Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers even starts, you are warned that this is a transfer from the only remaining print. This means that it hasn’t undergone digital enhancement in any way, so expect the movie to look grainy, just as it probably did. It isn’t horrible though, and I’ve seen transfers that are far worse. You are also advised that the movie might be best heard through drive-in speakers, but those sadly aren’t provided and finding one these days isn’t an easy task, though we actually do have one right here in Portland. The shoddy video and audio really does equate perfectly with the content and overall presentation of the film, so it’s more of a perfect match than what you might assume.

Fred Olen Ray, the director of Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, as well as writer Lee Lankford provide commentary for the movie, and it’s actually quite entertaining to listen to. They don’t take the movie seriously either, and they shouldn’t. Ray in particular has a lot of information on people involved in the movie and what they have gone on to do, and you’ll find that even if you work in low budget movies, you can move on to do some impressive things if you want to. The original theatrical trailer is included as well as a making of feature, but it’s much more or a retrospective feature with many of the people that were involved in the movie. There’s also a look a Nite Owl Theater which was a part of the early days of the Retromedia and tried to go for that B movie approach.

Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers definitely isn’t a cutting edge horror film, it’s not a memorable film, but it’s still just a heck of a lot of fun. It’s not the type of movie that you go into thinking that you will be watching some horrific masterpiece that will scare the pants off you, but it does have naked ladies, chainsaws, blood, and flying body parts, so with all of those things combined, you really can’t go wrong.
 

-mike-