Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers

Thats title, what can I say, it is beautiful!

So what happened when you get two of the best scream queens of the 80's and the original Leatherface himself to star in your noir parody flick? You end up with a wonderful pice of 80's cheese!

Released in 1988 Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers is a light hearted noir film (as light hearted as you can be with cartoon levers of blood splattering over nude women), our hero is Jack Chandler (Jay Richardson), a private dick searching for a teenage runaway, he is the typical noir lead, from his outfits to his mannerisms and his narration, everything about him echos back to the classic noir pictures of the 1940's and 50's. We have two female leads in the film; Linnea Quigley as the girl Chandler is searching for and Michelle Bauer as one of the titular chainsaw wielding hookers, though many more women fill out their ranks as well.

Another highlight of the film for me is Gunnar Hansen as the leader of the chainsaw cult (credited as The Stranger but referred to as Master by his followers), I'm a big texas Chainsaw Massacre fan so seeing the original Leatherface himself is a real treat.  Perhaps not the best actor in this film (it had been over ten years since his last acting role), Hansen still manages to delivered his crazy cult leader dialog with sincerity and seriousness that makes the ridiculous lines all the more hilarious. I have to say, my favourite line in the film is when The Stranger is giving a speech to his followers, done completely straight and very reminiscent of similar scenes in retro cultist B-movies, but for the last line he goes game show host to present 'The Virgin Dance of the Double Chainsaws', this isn't done is a mugging to the audience way and his change of tone just adds a punctuation mark to how silly his dialogue really is, it is also my favourite line in the film.

The film is a farce through and through, working as both a parody of noir and old cultist films, as well as a nod or too to certain horror films.   Most importantly the films is funny and I laughed out loud a good number of times, Hansen may have my favourite line but all the characters have witty dialogue that comes fast and furious, especialy from Chandler with such gems as this; 'I'd stumbled into the middle of an evil, insidious cult of chainsaw worshipping maniacs. I had to wonder if we'd let our religious freedom go too far in this country, or maybe our immigration laws were just too lax'.    Jay Richardson has great comic timing in this film and he nails the stereotypical privet investigator perfectly!

Of course both Linnea Quigley and Michelle Bauer are scream queen legends, earlier the same year as Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers was released they had both been in other cult favourite 'Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama', both are great in this film and a highlight is their chainsaw sword fight at the climax.

Many would probably not call this film too gory, and really it isn't, most of the chainsaw deaths occur with an offscreen victim while buckets or blood and halloween shop body parts are thrown at our chainsaw temptresses, the cartoony approach to the gore works perfectly for the film and its humor.

Even the credits of this films are amusing with stuff like this...

There is also a funny bit or trivia regarding the original UK VHS release of the film, due to strange rules they couldn't use the word 'Chainsaw' in the title on the box so they replaced it with a picture of a chainsaw, I suppose thats a creative way around it.

I loved this films from start to finish, if cheesy b-movies are your thing this is one you certainly must check out, and to wet your appetite enjoy this clip of The Virgin Dance Of The Double Chainsaw!