I have been watching these movies for the majority of my life now, and doing this marathon for more than a decade, so when I say I was surprised by a movie, that is a true rarity. When it’s a movie with this kind of title, well… that’s a rarity among rarities.
On the streets of Los Angeles California, people go missing all the time. Men, Women, and even children slip into the darkness behind a neon sign and a puff of expensive cigarette smoke never to be seen by anyone again. That’s the best-case scenario. No one sees them again and everyone goes on living their lives never thinking about the ones that disappeared right under their noses. Worse than that are the ones that do come back, only they aren’t the same. Either they’re a changed person no one recognizes anymore, or they’re messed up so badly that even dental records couldn’t help identify them. Jack is a Private Detective charged with trying to track down one of those poor missing souls. He hopes to bring them home to their mother who is out of options and pleading for any info she can get. Jack doesn’t care about hope. He’s just in it for a paycheck. He’s had a hard life himself and knows that even when he brings home what he is asked, sometimes the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
When I went into this flick I was expecting a lot. Not that I mean I was expecting Oscar-caliber acting, or story, or effects, or anything… far from it. I was expecting a lot of gratuitous nudity, sex, blood, a lot of puns, terrible effects, and some of the worst acting on film. What I was NOT expecting was for this T&A movie to be told from the standpoint of a noir pulp private dick. Once the initial shock of how the story was being spun wore off, honestly, I was quite pleased with it. Sure it still had all the elements of a bad 80s film all over the place, but the way it went about the “quiet moments” just chewing the plot up and spitting it out was kind of commendable.
I didn’t realize when I picked the last film and this one that they had a lot of the same cast, it was just pure dumb luck. The “scream queens” plastered all over the screen were very easy on the eyes and boy did they not hold back on just letting it all hangout. Also, I noticed that they both had a guy in them going by the name “Dukey Flyswatter.” I’d never heard of the guy before but have seen more than a few movies that had him in the cast. I won’t say much more about him specifically, but let’s just say he is apparently known for doing a certain style of film. It also has a guy in it that I only recognized as the Sgt. from Samurai Cop. Oh, and Gunnar Hansen is in it as the weird menacing figure in the background. Gunnar, you may know (or probably don’t) as the guy who played Leatherface in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Does Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers really set the 80s horror genre on fire? No. Stripping away (pun kind of intended) the one thing that it does do differently (the noir bit) there really isn’t anything at all fantastical about it. On its own, this movie wouldn’t be worth recommending at all for anything other than background noise at a horror-themed party. However, when you add in that weird bit of story-telling that it DOES have, honestly, I think I kind of really like this one. I won’t say that it is the clear “winner” this year, as it is far too early for that, but it definitely is one that stands out. If you like buckets of blood, even more boobs and butts, and a weird sense of style, this might be a fun movie to check out.
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