With a title like that, you hardly need a movie!
HOLLYWOOD CHAINSAW HOOKERS, 1980s schlock
Ah, VHS tapes. They have vanished like last year's snowmen, as not only don't video stores stock VHS anymore but video stores themselves are all gone except for maybe one Blockbuster on the outskirts of Tree Stump, Oklahoma. So many people stream whatever they want or just sign up for Netflix. Ah, but it wasn't always so. Back in the 1980s, my area in upstate New York saw two or three independent video stores in every midsize town. People would buy their first VCR and go nuts, renting more movies than they could possibly watch before having to return them. A lot of stores would rent you a VCR for a few bucks and there were those of us who hooked up the two machines with dubbing cables and ran off a copy of everything we rented. (I'm not saying I did anything like that, of course, but there are all the suspicious stacks of tapes in my back room with carefully hans-printed labels...) Soon enough Macrovision and other copyguards would foil this hobby, and the movie fiends turned to taping off Turner Classic Movies and American Movie Classics (back when the name fit).
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The video boom created a need for product, and naturally enterprising young filmmakers with more nerve than budget turned out hundreds of el cheapo flicks. Most of this stuff was so bad it hurt your feelings to think someone thought you would enjoy it. But there was a lot of goofy comedy and splatterish horror on the shelves, in bad taste as a matter of policy. Fred Olen Ray directed quite a few movies that were whacky enough to be watchable, usually with a payoff scene of extreme grossness. HOLLYWOOD CHAINSAW HOOKERS came out in 1988, starring one of my favorite guilty pleasures, little Linnea Quigley.
This was a barefaced shaggy dog tale. A private eye (who narrates the movie like Philip Marlowe with a hangover) searches Hollywood for a young runaway. In his investigation, he uncovers an ancient Egyptian chainsaw sect. What? No, that's right. It's led by Gunnar Hansen, the guy who played Leatherface in THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and he's really bland and unintimidating here. Prostitutes (such as gorgeous and marginally talented Michelle Baur) lure their customers to a secure area where they hack the poor suckers up with big ol' chainsaws, accompanied by special effects of a Monty Python style. It ends with a nearly nude Linnea (always a treat) trying to dance while swinging around two chainsaws almost as big as she is and then a chainsaw duel. Bet her arms hurt after filming that. (This sequence is up on YouTube, and believe me more than one Linnea fan got smitten here first).
I haven't watched any of these 1980s videos in many years now. Many years back, I started converting my VHS collection over onto DVDs for convenience. But, although I re-recorded YOU CAN'T CHEAT AN HONEST MAN and I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE and FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH onto DVDs, somehow I didn't feel compelled to do the same with this genre. VICE ACADEMY, DOLLMAN VS DEMONIC TOYS, BEVERLY HILLS VAMP, TOXIC AVENGER, CREEPOZOIDS... I dunno, they just didn't call to me to be archived.
HOLLYWOOD CHAINSAW HOOKERS, 1980s schlock
Ah, VHS tapes. They have vanished like last year's snowmen, as not only don't video stores stock VHS anymore but video stores themselves are all gone except for maybe one Blockbuster on the outskirts of Tree Stump, Oklahoma. So many people stream whatever they want or just sign up for Netflix. Ah, but it wasn't always so. Back in the 1980s, my area in upstate New York saw two or three independent video stores in every midsize town. People would buy their first VCR and go nuts, renting more movies than they could possibly watch before having to return them. A lot of stores would rent you a VCR for a few bucks and there were those of us who hooked up the two machines with dubbing cables and ran off a copy of everything we rented. (I'm not saying I did anything like that, of course, but there are all the suspicious stacks of tapes in my back room with carefully hans-printed labels...) Soon enough Macrovision and other copyguards would foil this hobby, and the movie fiends turned to taping off Turner Classic Movies and American Movie Classics (back when the name fit).
The video boom created a need for product, and naturally enterprising young filmmakers with more nerve than budget turned out hundreds of el cheapo flicks. Most of this stuff was so bad it hurt your feelings to think someone thought you would enjoy it. But there was a lot of goofy comedy and splatterish horror on the shelves, in bad taste as a matter of policy. Fred Olen Ray directed quite a few movies that were whacky enough to be watchable, usually with a payoff scene of extreme grossness. HOLLYWOOD CHAINSAW HOOKERS came out in 1988, starring one of my favorite guilty pleasures, little Linnea Quigley.
This was a barefaced shaggy dog tale. A private eye (who narrates the movie like Philip Marlowe with a hangover) searches Hollywood for a young runaway. In his investigation, he uncovers an ancient Egyptian chainsaw sect. What? No, that's right. It's led by Gunnar Hansen, the guy who played Leatherface in THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and he's really bland and unintimidating here. Prostitutes (such as gorgeous and marginally talented Michelle Baur) lure their customers to a secure area where they hack the poor suckers up with big ol' chainsaws, accompanied by special effects of a Monty Python style. It ends with a nearly nude Linnea (always a treat) trying to dance while swinging around two chainsaws almost as big as she is and then a chainsaw duel. Bet her arms hurt after filming that. (This sequence is up on YouTube, and believe me more than one Linnea fan got smitten here first).
I haven't watched any of these 1980s videos in many years now. Many years back, I started converting my VHS collection over onto DVDs for convenience. But, although I re-recorded YOU CAN'T CHEAT AN HONEST MAN and I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE and FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH onto DVDs, somehow I didn't feel compelled to do the same with this genre. VICE ACADEMY, DOLLMAN VS DEMONIC TOYS, BEVERLY HILLS VAMP, TOXIC AVENGER, CREEPOZOIDS... I dunno, they just didn't call to me to be archived.
statistics: Posted by doctorhermes428 — 8:10 PM - 1 day ago — Replies 8 — Views 505