HOLLYWOOD CHAINSAW HOOKERS (1988)

Director: Fred Olen Ray

Writers: Fred Olen Ray, T.L. Lankford

Producer: Fred Olen Ray

Cast: Jay Richardson, Linnea Quigley, Michelle Bauer (as Michelle McClellan), Gunnar Hansen, Dawn Wildsmith, Esther Elise (as Esther Alise), Tricia Burns, Jerry Fox, Jimmy Williams, Michael Sonye (as Dukey Flyswatter), Susie Wilson, Dennis Monney, Jerry Miller, Steve Welles, Charles O’Hair, Jeffrey Wilson, Gerry Jenkins, Gary Levinson, Sandy Palm (uncredited), Christopher Ray (uncredited) 

Los Angeles private detective Jack Chandler (Jay Richardson) is looking for a runaway girl (Linnea Quigley). In the course of his investigation, he stumbles upon a cult of chainsaw-wielding hookers that murder their clients to appease their god. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

As the '80s videotape market created an insatiable demand for more movies to rent and more diverse and idiosyncratic tastes to be catered to, the low-budget filmmaker found a new lease on life beyond the drive-in by making direct-to-video product. Although some of the more ambitious low-budget productions would achieve some theatrical and cable channel showings, videotape sales and rentals were essential outlets to make a profit. To get the attention of the video renting audience, producers came up with lurid titles that were as over-the-top as the content of their movies. These productions often strove for a self-aware sense of parody in exploitation excess. No movie epitomizes that approach better than Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers.

Boobs, blood, and baloney are the main ingredients in this simple stew of a film. This movie seems to exist only to justify the attention-getting title. The boobs and the blood are the exploitation ingredients to be found in many low-budget horror films of the time. The baloney is required to provide a reason for hookers in Hollywood to be using chainsaws to kill. Because that baloney is so outrageous, it makes this film a parody of exploitation cinema in general. 

Dawn Wildsmith opens the film as the very first chainsaw hooker we meet. She gives a fine and funny performance that really sets the tone for the whole film. Her character’s rather schizoid personality veers from nonchalant whore to gleeful killer. Later, she acts like a giggling bimbo that we can’t trust for a second. Wildsmith has great comic flair and I really need to see more of her work. 

Two of the main attractions in the low-budget world of '80s genre films appear here. Michelle Bauer (billed here as Michelle McClellan) and Linnea Quigley top the cast of sexy ladies. They are the bad girl and the good girl, respectively. They also co-starred in other productions during this era. Bauer was probably the film’s major selling point as she is the beautiful brunette brandishing a chainsaw on the film’s poster and promotional material. She also is the naked spectacle in the film’s best-remembered scene.

Gunnar Hansen is the stunt casting here. Who better to play the leader of a chainsaw cult than the original Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)? He gets one of the funniest bits when he introduces “The Virgin Dance of the Double Chainsaws” as if he is an emcee at a talent contest instead of directing a cult ritual. 

It is Jay Richardson’s performance that really holds this simple and silly thing together. His Jack Chandler is a fun throwback to the hard-boiled private eye characters of film noir. He delivers every line with cynical relish and his voice-overs provide some of the best laughs. 

This movie works because it does not violate its loopy sense of reality while we are all too aware of its absurdities. Therefore, we can engage with the characters and situations on two levels: appreciating the sexy and gory shenanigans being investigated by the hard luck hero while knowing that we are being fed exploitation clichés that are barely justified by an outlandish, evil MO. The movie never quite breaks the fourth wall, which is why it still has a bit of charm. 

Co-written, directed, and produced by prolific exploitation filmmaker Fred Olen Ray, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers manages to be crass and crude at the same time that it lets us all in on the joke. It is probably Ray’s most appreciated film and is great fun for the jaded horror fan looking for a change of pace. The film also performs a public service with a safe sex message that is just as important over thirty years later: If your partner puts on a shower cap in the bedroom before sex, get the hell out of there!