Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers

Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers Directed By Fred Olen Ray, Starring Michele Bauer (1988).

From the warning explaining that these are real chainsaws to the Cramps crossbred with The Monkees squawky sax song over the credits, it seems like I should be all fired up for a USA Up All Night Sawploitation classic, but my nerves are shot and I'm paranoid because I am aware that we're about to get waist deep in the cheesy swamp of Fred Olen Ray's world. Ray and Jim Wynorski have a couple of good eggs in their wretched careers, Chopping Mall is probably better than F.O.R.'s entire catalog though. In the T&A exploitation war Jim totally out ranks him. Give this one a chance though it's more fun than I'd ever imagined it could've been.
I mean there's the beautiful Michele Bauer (aka former porn star Pia Snow from Cafe Flesh here, getting totally full bush naked, while wiggling and dismembering some poor dope). She fastens an adorable shower cap to her head to deflect the sinew and splatter which rains over her and a velvet Elvis. From that little five minute scene, I know like the Hermans Hermits song that "I'm in to something good".

You can cover me in guts and gunk but don't damage my velvet Elvis

Gunnar Hansen is a cult leader/pimp and it's kind of interesting how he's the only internationally famous fictional cannibal lunatic who's never gotten back into his Leatherface costume and reprised that role. I swear Hookers might be even better than Cyclone and that for me was the Olen Ray benchmark of quality, this one is light years ahead in likability and the naked babes certainly rack it up a notch (Heh, Rack).

That bitch better have my money and my headcheese croissant 

It's got this whole poseur gum shoe film noir angle that gets old fast, but it doesn't really effect the pacing oddly enough. Jay Richardson, who's acting career is stuck in late night Skin-A-Max purgatory, plays the dull main character. Fox Harris, the neutron bomb mad scientist from Repo Man shows up as a sleazy moronic John named Herman who gets smacked in the noggin by Ester Elise, a cute vixen who looks like a smaller breasted version of Christy Canyon. 

Help, this bat is stuck in my beehive 

All the while Gunnar is lurking in the shadows scoping out the murders committed by his hookers. I remember having a serious crush on Michele Bauer after seeing her in some late night cable garbage one night in middle school, she's very pretty but those boobs are too hard and fake looking!

I'm gearing up for own horror workout video BUY NOW, operators are standing by!

Linnea Quigley shows up too, you might as well call this an "all star scream queen-o-rama". Brinke Stevens is mysteriously absent though, so it's not a complete event. 

Leatherface wears an Egyptian Sphinx necklace and seems related to Fuad Ramses (or possibly the schmuck from Mardi Gras Massacre). That connection gets even more interesting after I found out Dukey Flyswater (aka Michael Sonye) who plays a snaggle toothed bartender wrote the screenplay for Blood Diner, which is basically an unofficial sequel to the H.G. Lewis staple. Sonye is also responsible for the creation of Frozen Scream, one of the lamest video nasty even conceived!! I'm always baffled at how anyone can enjoy that film on any level and there's an entire chapter devoted to FS in "Nightmare U.S.A". and I'm not gonna slam Stephen Thrower because he's friends with everyone I know. I just don't get it and I don't think I ever will.

Quigley, who plays a virgin runaway--(Haw, nice casting)--feels sorry for the dumb ass detective and wants to leave the chainsaw cult. According to IMDB.com, Richardson actually head butted Linnea in real life, what a tard! Maybe that head damage later rattled her brain enough to wanna marry Al Goldstein, (I still can't believe that ever happened). 

HCH is likeable trash, the girls are hot and though the gore is minimal it's schlocky and fun. It held my interest the entire time which is unheard of in a Fred Olen Ray flick, I wasn't even wasted either!

FOR A GOOD TIME, CHECK THIS SHIT OUT, BUT DON'T EXPECT IT EVER TO HAPPEN AGAIN!

BUY HERE (OR WATCH ON YOUTUBE)

Schizoid

Schizoid Directed By David Paulsen, Starring Klaus Kinski (1980).

I was unimpressed by Pete Walkers "Schizo" which was featured in the DR catalog, so I've decided to review "Schizoid" instead since it's got 2 very attractive qualities: Klaus Kinski and The Cannon Group. Anytime I think of Klaus now, I imagine him destroying an entire bathroom c/o of a Herzog description in "My Best Fiend." Let's all hope this film isn't the cinematic equivalent to wrecking a toilet!

After Skunkape and I slugged it out with Boaz Davison's sad sack opus "Hospital Massacre" (or "X- Ray"), my expectations were critically low for this one, even though I've been itching to see it ever since I read the review in Psychotronic Video. If the first 7 mins are any indication of how fun this high brow slasher will be than I'm so down.

Kinski delivered an epic performance in "Crawlspace" and here he's a scissor wielding psycho (or schizo). I wonder what Siskel and Ebert thought of this one considering they shit their collective pants in outrage over something as wimpy as "The Boogeyman". You'd think they'd give it a chance once they got a whiff of that Kinski musk, then again I'm not sure what they thought of "The Great Silence," maybe they probably ignored it outright. This was actually featured on a double bill with the Susanne Love film (both came out in 1980) and now is on DVD next to "X-Ray", another Cannon Film.

Anyone who was offended by The Boogeyman is a total pussy!

So yeah, Christopher Loyd channeling Snyder from "One Day At A Time" is also present-- I'm in cult nerd paradise! Klaus, who's Lloyd's therapist seems to be smuggling a chub for his nubile teenage daughter played by "Angel" and "Jaws 2's" piggy nosed babe Donna Wilkes--is that skin crawly or what? Wilkes does a surprisingly top notch job in this role and you see her naked unlike the exploitation vehicle where she played a prostitute. You can't enjoy it however because of the incest connotation--Bleccchhhh.

You know I think I'll soup up the flex capacitor so I can nail Bonnie Franklin!

Someone is sending "Zodiac Killer" style random notes to the cops. The score thumpity bumps around casio "Don't Answer the Phone" style, but more lethargic. Richard Herd (from the "V Series" and "Seinfeld") is one of the cops looking for the killer. This one's got a lot more celebs than you'd think, although this is 1980 so no one was really ringing the phone off the hook yet looking for these future stars. The foley of a girl fleeing in terror down the stairs is so bad that it reminds me of the scene in Albert Brooks' "Modern Romance," where he totally fucks up the sound for a Sci Fi film. The murder by scissor scenes are almost drip-dry bloodless, maybe there was no effects guy? 

At the half point of the film, one of the worst actors who I can't help but admire shows up--Mr. Craig Wasson! He delivers his lines at the top of his lungs (maybe De Palma saw him in this and went "Hey I need an actor who can stare a lot and act like a cold fish for Body Double"). There's a bizarre death scene in a hot tub that tries to one-up Hitchcock. They throw in a few red herrings to confuse you about who the killer may be and it's hard to decipher because almost all of the characters are unhinged. 

OK You got me, I'm really Bill Maher

Joe Regalbuto who looks a lot like Ted Bundy to me, helps solve the ransom note riddle. After this he acted on mainly sitcoms and never turned back. I shouldn't compare this to the Pete Walker film but it's a lot better and also more fun than "X-Ray". Fulci's A Lizard in Women's Skin's alternate title was Schizo and there's a cool Venom song with that name. Before making this Paulsen the director made "Savage Weekend" (which is mind numbingly boring but featured in the catalog). He went on to a long career with mainstream CBS hits like Dallas and Dynasty whereas Klaus between acting for Werner Herzog appeared in B-Movie junk like "Creature", "Android" and "Time Stalkers". Oh yeah and he passed up on the role as Toht in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" to do "Venom" with Susan George!

I wonder why the Ted Bundy look didn't catch on in the 80's?

Just a few days later the VHS version I watched for this review was taken down from Youtube. It's on Blu-Ray now which is fine and I obviously support you watch it on a purchased format in higher quality but damn that was fast! I really enjoyed the first half up until the hot tub scene. This film bashes you over the with heavy doses of a psychological thriller then the pacing really peters out into the dull zone. See it anyway, especially if you're a Kinski file and you just wanna gawk at famous people when they were struggling in a slasher film financed by Cannon.

THE SLASHER FILM VERSION OF 70'S MATCH GAME (MORE CELEBS APPEAR THAN AN EPISODE OF THE LOVE BOAT).

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! 

Savage Intruder

Savage Intruder (Hollywood Horror House), Directed By Donald Wolfe, Starring Miriam Hopkins (1970). 

A few years ago I bought this Video Nasty artwork book called Shock, Horror by Francis Brewster, Harvey Fenton and Morris, it has become a reference guide for all things I vaguely remember seeing in the horror section of the video store as a kid. I'm always taking a trip down nostalgia lane (this site is cathartic for me in that fashion). Some of the videos are just obscure oddities that seem like a good time and never made it officially to the nasty list but who really cares anyway, right? Savage Intruder (or the more appropriately titled Hollywood Horror House) was accidentally marketed during the hype as a banned vid, how this happened I have no idea? Pretty anything on Vipco was sold as "banned" or lurid to capitalize on the 80's censorship craze. This film doesn't deserve that kind of bargain basement treatment, it's a lot better than you'd think! It's not in the Deep Red catalog but off and on we branch out into other lists for inspiration. J4HI.com sells this on a double feature with Nashville's "Dear Dead Delilah" an Agnes Moorhead trash-ter-piece that looks pretty creepy too. So let's dig into this wacky hippie nightmare and see what happens already!

Lidsville is the gaaa gaaa grooviest

Brought to you by Avco Embassy no less (I always view them as the "Spinal Tap" company). I had no expectations initially, but this film is very disturbing and has a lot more gore than you'd think. Hollywood-- it chews you up and spits you out till you're down at the bottom of the porn industry to paraphrase a Seinfeld episode and that's exactly where our story begins with the dismembered body of some old hag. Some dude in a floppy hat beats a haggard Imogene Coca looking drunk over the head (maybe it's Albert from "I Dismember Mama" up to his old tricks again). He cuts her arm with an electric turkey carving knife and blood splatters across the toilet (Eek! can it get any sleazier than this)? This is the kind of seedy shit that goes down in La-La Land everyday and don't blink now or you might miss Joe "3rd Stooge" Besser as a bus driver tour guide!

STOP CHOPPING UP PEOPLE SO LOOUUUD

Miriam Hopkins in her last ever screen performance is Katherine Packard (Parker on IMDB for some reason), a demented "Norma Desmond style" wacko. I love it when old timey actresses decide to delve into sleaze, kind of how Veronica Lake did in her last film "Flesh Feast", although this one is monumentally more entertaining. This film seems to have influenced "Tourist Trap" and possibly "Pin: A Plastic Nightmare", it's the kind of warped film you'd see late at night back before cable existed and it would haunt your nightmares. I could imagine someone babbling about this one to anyone who would listen "Seriously, It Really Happened I'm not making it up". 

my eyeball could use more vaseline 

Vic (David Garfield) shows up as a caregiver who uses the most retarded alias ever to slip in under false pretenses "LaurelAnHardy" and wouldn't you know, they all fall for it and hire him. All the old bippies who work for Packard are annoyed by Vic's hippy haircut and see him as a member of the new generation they don't want to relate to. He gets along pretty well with the old battle axe and there's even a clunky montage of them becoming more chummy. Obviously, he's the killer that's been wandering around town right, maybe. He does inject himself with scag and trips out in a kaleidoscopic freakout, he's haunted by the image of his slutty mother with bulging eyes and red lipstick who scowls at him. His mother reminds me of this scary commercial that wigged me out as a kid for the Haunted Mansion in Long Branch NJ and I remember not even being able to look at the T.V. I was so terrified. It's weird how you're child brain plays tricks on you because after seeing it again on Youtube there's no creepy woman.  

AAAAAAAAAHH, I just ate a ton of garlic bread!

Vic brings his Asian girlfriend Greta (Virginia Wing) to his bosses lavish home after dark. Katherine begins to get hot and horny for old Vic (Yuck, it's pretty gross)! Whenever we see him chop someone up, they insert a bottle of ketchup slowly pouring out the red stuff, nice touch but it does remind me of those 80's wait patiently for your Heinz ketchup to emerge commercials like this one with Matt Lablanc. The slimy Vic and gives off a dimestore hood vibe, he forces his girlfriend to drop acid and says "You're a pain, so take this painkiller", Cosby anyone? He seems more content to be a gigolo for his elderly has-been boss than work on his relationship with the cute Asian girl, more proof that this dude is a fucking weirdo. 

Whoops, I took the kind of acid that dissolves your esophagus

This film is super trippy and fits somewhere in the realm or "The Psychopath" or "Blood and Lace", it has that look of a cruddy 70's TV movie (think Joy N. Houck Jr.) but then BLAMMO, it smacks you over the head with shocking imagery and it's a very jarring combo, I love that kind of shit!

The Vipco box cover falsely claims that "People behind the Driller Killer were responsible for this", yeah right! This one is not ashamed to revel in it's campiness, there's one part where a shindig featuring Buddy Douglas gyrates with a huge breasted woman and Kathy drops enough acid to think she's the Christmas queen in a parade. This one is worth seeking out, the ending is totally insane and probably up for debate! This film takes slight influences and uses them so it all comes off as a good cryptic mixture, check it out! It's available from J4THI.com and on Youtube (for a limited time).

BUY HERE 

Somebody call child protective services, Oh wait it's a midget!

All That Remains Are Memories by Kris Gilpin

As I'm stuck back here in Floriduh now (still hate it) and broke, in debt & basically homeless, I think about the few highlights of my life (I should've been a character actor but fucked that up, I didn't know how to go about it (duh!), I think of all the cool peeps I've met & just wanted to share these short bits with others. I don't mean to be at all pretentious here, I'll just always be a kid from boring Miami in my heart and I've never lost the thrill of meeting famous folk thru the years. That and the fact that Erok has offered me $1 a word, well, enjoy, I hope!...[Gilpin, you having one of those LSD flashbacks?! - Ed.]...

Kurt Vonnegut:

The last time was in NYC (only been there twice, didn't like it, dirty and hard as hell to make a living there, and that was decades ago. L.A. is like that now) I was walking down a popular, rich street (6th Ave.? Duh...) and coming towards me was Kurt Vonnegut (!), a long time literary hero of mine. Unfortunately, he had his hands full, with lots of bags. My heart beat faster as I got the courage to say, "Hello, Mr. Vonnegut! I, uh..." He saw I really wanted to talk to him, so after a  moment he stopped, motioned me aside, tho he was obviously in a hurry, shook my hand and said, "Yes..."

Knowing I was apparently keeping him from something, I quickly tried to get out, "When I was a kid my old brother, who I was closer to than anyone, bought me a copy of Mother Night, I loved it, he later took a year to die young in pain from cancer, and I've read all your books since, and every time I read one it reminds me of him and of how, if he had lived, we surely would've written some funny stuff together--we had the same warped sense of humor--and my entire life would've been different, instead of the fucked-up mess that I've made of it by myself,"

I still don't know why, but all my nervous, then jammed-up brain could spit out was, "Uh, um, my...I think you're fantastic!"

I instantly thought, Oh no, what a fuckin idiot!!

He simply nodded politely, as if to say, Thanks, but I'm in a hurry and you're wasting my precious time here...

He then wordlessly walked away and I froze there, getting tears in my eyes. It haunted me for YEARS, until I encountered someone online who said they knew someone who knew someone who knew Vonnegut. I wrote out all the above in an email, sent it to him and begged him to send it to K.V. He said he would, and did, but of course I never heard back a word.

I don't know if Vonnegut ever did get my apology/explanation for that day, but I've always hoped that he did before he died.

Michael Ironside:

For the 22 years I was in L.A. I was in heaven, of course. On almost every street, almost every day, I'd run into people I recognized and loved.

One night my ex-wife and I were coming out of a theater on Hollywood Blvd. and in front of us was Michael Ironside, he looked and even moved like Joe Fucking Cool, no lie! We walked behind him a few feet and he actually seemed to emanate a strong vibe which I could feel just by being behind him, making me think, Holy shit, he has the Joe-Cool aura you'd expect from Jack Nicholson!

More heart palpitations before I stopped him and told him how much I loved his work in Scanners. I didn't know if he would bark, "Fuck off!" at me, but he was cool, said thanks and shook our hands. Only then did I notice the smiling beauty on his arm, and my jaw partially dropped--it was the still-stunning Kristen (R-and X-rated Alice in Wonderland) DeBell! I said, "Oh, hi, Kristen, we love you, too!" (Ironside smiled at that.) She smiled sweetly and shook our hands. "Well, I'll let you guys go, we just had to say hi!"

That's one of the few things (along with the indie-film theaters and the bookstores) I miss from L.A. I got out after all the rich, vacuous movie-studio types (who I worked for) started making me sick (another story)...