VICE SQUAD (1982)

Director: Gary A. Sherman

Writers: Sandy Howard, Kenneth Peters, Robert Vincent O’Neill, Gary A. Sherman (uncredited)

Producer: Brian Frankish

Cast: Season Hubley, Gary Swanson, Wings Hauser, Nina Blackwood, Pepe Serna, Joseph DiGiroloma, Beverly Todd, Maurice Emanuel, Wayne Hackett, Kelly Piper, Sudana Bobatoon, Lydia Lei, Michael Ensign, Fred Berry, Nicole Volkoff, Hugo Stanger, Stack Pierce, Nate Esformes, Kristoffer Anders, Joseph Baroncini, Tom Brent, Grand L. Bush, Marilyn Coleman, Stacy Everly, Cliff Frazier, Lyla Graham, Ark Wong, Vincent J. Isaac, Cyndi James-Reese, Robert Miano, Barbara Pilavin, Donald Rawley, Cheryl Smith, Richard Wetzel, Jonathan Haze

Ramrod (Wings Hauser) is a sadistic pimp in Los Angeles. He severely assaults one of his hookers, Ginger (Nina Blackwood), who soon dies in the hospital just as vice squad detective Sgt. Tom Walsh (Gary Swanson) is trying to get her to finger Ramrod as her attacker. Walsh convinces Princess (Season Hubley), another prostitute and friend of Ginger, to be wired for sound and entice Ramrod to be her pimp. Upon hearing the audio evidence he needs, Walsh’s team arrests Ramrod. As Ramrod is being taken to headquarters for booking, he escapes and is loose in the city. While the LAPD patrol the city to recapture him, the psychotic Ramrod is hellbent on seeking vengeance against Princess.

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

Research for an aborted television documentary on prostitution led to a script for the intense crime thriller Vice Squad. The story depicts one awful night in the seedy world of LA’s pimps, prostitutes, and the law enforcement officers that must confront them. Unlike many mainstream film and television presentations of the time, this movie does not glamorize the sex workers or detectives, nor does it moralize. It presents interesting and extreme situations in a sordid environment and leaves it to the audience to decide how to feel about the characters. The filmmakers just take us for a wild and dangerous ride.

Director Gary Sherman had previously made two very idiosyncratic horror films: Death Line (1972), aka Raw Meat, and Dead & Buried (1981). I had been intrigued about Vice Squad because of Sherman’s involvement and the infamous balls-to-the-wall performance of Wings Hauser as the vile pimp Ramrod. Sherman was not stepping very far away from the horror genre directing such a monstrously evil character.

Season Hubley is terrific in her leading role. We are introduced to her as a loving mother sending her little girl (Nicole Volkoff) off to San Diego to stay with a grandmother. This lady seems to be the perfect picture of domestic, single-parent responsibility. Then, in a grubby, bus station restroom, she transforms into the solo prostitute Princess. She positively struts out into the dark streets of LA to get down to the shady business of turning tricks to make her living. Her carriage and attitude are not from any sense of pride but seem due to a mindset that she adopts to get the job done. Once things escalate into danger, there are still nuances to Hubley’s performance that really work to put us inside her character’s skin.

Gary Swanson plays vice squad detective Sgt. Tom Walsh. He is shown just doing his job with a day-by-day attitude, but he is obviously dedicated. Walsh is probably frustrated by the seeming futility of his job, which comes to a head when he tries to get the hospitalized Ginger to accuse Ramrod of her beating. She is so afraid and dominated by the vicious pimp who assaulted her that she dies without divulging any useful information. Walsh has compassion that seems to be suppressed most of the time, but he vows to make Ramrod pay for his crimes.

A key scene for both Walsh and Princess is when he summons her to help him set up Ramrod for an arrest. Emotions for both characters run hot as Walsh rather ruthlessly coerces Princess’s cooperation, yet he also comforts her as she sobs hysterically over her murdered friend Ginger. The performances build into an emotional collision that has real impact on the viewer and bonds us with the characters.

We have already been shown just how sadistic Ramrod is when he terrorized Ginger. But he seems even more despicable once Princess must entice him to be her pimp to get him arrested. He manhandles and demeans her while praising her beauty to pressure her into joining his stable of hookers. Wing Hauser plays Ramrod as such a cocksure misogynist that we are fully invested in hoping for his downfall. Ramrod is just the sort of fiend that could give pimping a bad name.

Ramrod’s arrest is when things really start to get out of control. Once Ramrod is confounded by anyone, he turns into an unpredictable berserker. After escaping from custody, Ramrod is running on pure rage that drives him through one victim after another to locate the object of his vengeful desire: Princess.

Prior to this film, Wings Hauser was probably best known for his role of nice guy Greg Foster for four years on CBS Television’s soap opera series The Young and the Restless (1973—present). Hauser had visited the set of director Sherman’s previous film, Dead & Buried, and the two hit it off. Sherman says he sensed an inner rage in Hauser that he thought could be channeled effectively into the Ramrod character.

Hauser’s enthusiasm seems evident in his sociopathic portrayal, which is probably what the film is most remembered for. His performance does not contain typical movie villain schtick; there are no clever one-liners and elaborate schemes, just a few threats and very impulsive action. Ramrod is a confident and soulless sadist without any doubts or regrets. Wings Hauser also sings the film’s opening and closing theme, “Neon Slime.” It certainly sets the mood of LA criminal decadence very effectively by having the film’s villain doing that vocal.

As a crime thriller amidst the sex trade, Vice Squad is certainly intense, but it never plays out like a typical exploitation movie. The nudity is fleeting and there is never any sense of the erotic. We meet a few of the johns that Princess picks up, and the situations may turn out to be funny, weird, or upsetting for her. As coolheaded and experienced as Princess is, sometimes even she is taken aback or cheated.

Vice Squad is quite violent, yet there is even more suggested than shown. Why it really registers is because the action is not stylized to an impossibly exaggerated or heroic degree. The violence hurts, people bleed, and there is pain and fright expressed.

The film still manages to alleviate the grim intensity for brief moments with odd bit parts by eccentric characters infesting the underbelly of Los Angeles. There are also two hapless vice squad partners, detectives Kowalski (Joseph Di Giroloma) and Mendez (Pepe Serna), that provide some laughs at their expense.

Vice Squad has all the ingredients for an exploitation film, yet its tone is more sincere without losing any energy. We are tantalized by dangerous and salacious behavior without it ever made to seem appealing. We spend the night on the sleazy streets of LA as all hell breaks loose. There are offbeat characters and situations presented without any character arcs or lessons learned. We can only speculate on the lasting effect of the events upon some of the characters, which is never declared. We are left to sort out our own feelings about this world of vice once we’ve spent some harrowing time on both sides of the law.