Linnea Quigley Week: Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers

Welcome back for Day 4 of Linnea Quigley Week and apparently I have angered the cinema deities be not talking up Michael Caine's Alfie since I have be lumped with YET ANOTHER Fred Olen Ray movie. Worry not for me fair readers, I shall wage through the quagmire of tripe and hold my head high. Well we have a cankerous sore of a B-movie dark comedy horror awaiting us so we can't put it off any longer. Linnea Quigley given second billing in our wondrous film feature.

This is Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers.

Sorority initiations are rough!

Our scintillating tale begins around a tawdry bar infested with some sort of prostitution racket. With a narrative of our L.A. private investigator Jack Chandler (Jay Richardson of Terror Night, Out of Time, Brothers in Arms, L.A. Heat, Terminal Force and Witchcraft II: The Temptress) a seedy detective minutes away from being evicted from his office, apartment and life when he is hired to find a runaway Samantha (Linnea Quigley of The Return of the Living Dead, Night of the Demons, Hollywood Cops, Boogie Boy, Death Mask, The Killer Eye and Animals) who may have gotten mixed up in more than shenanigans (hi-jinks not the restaurant franchise) and is hot on the case... and by that I mean slobs around and looks for clues and harasses people with his whiskey laden breath.

Yeah, I'm drunk. So what?

After a bit of haggling, pounding the pavement and actually using his eyes he secludes to a dive of a bar that seems to have abducted Penthouse Pets for their "entertainment". Seriously, the bar does not get much clientele that seems interested in bar snacks, booze or chicken wings. Rumors on the street is that a gang of prostitutes may be in league with a satanic cult that sacrifices the johns and keeps the loot, cars and other possessions. The leader of this nefarious death cult is simply known as the Stranger (Gunnar Hansen of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Demon Lover, Hellblock 13, Rachel's Attic, Witchhunter and The Deepening) who insists dismembering the hookers' clients is far more profitable than having repeating customers. Can Jack get Samantha out of this bloody bordello of baddies or end up the next one on the chopping block?

As you may have guessed it this is YET ANOTHER blatant excuse for full front nudity, girls contorting and writhing about and copious amounts of gore. Only highlight was the chainsaw dance because they were actual saws going with Quigley dancing about.

A few comments about our "movie" now.

Our movie was shot in about five and a half days. It took over seven hours to paint Linnea Quigley's body for her Virgin Dance of the Double Chainsaws number. The original UK video release was not allowed to have the word chainsaw in the title, so the video cover has the words Hollywood Hookers with a large silhouette of a chainsaw in between. Baffling ain't it?

Grownup enough for ya, mister?

Horror Grab Bag Week: Horror Hotel

Well after two hotel films, Eaten Alive and Hotel Hell I am a bit leery of this travel guide book.  Let’s see what we have here…Whitewood Massachusetts has a lovely place so why don’t we head there.   Grab your suitcases and pack them with all what we need.  This is Horror Hotel a.k.a. City of the Dead

College hazing is rough!

The lighting of this room clearly ascents the spoilers here.

Originally titled City of the Dead in the UK where it was created the US wanted a less vicious title but set the tone that this was in fact a thriller/horror movie.  Director John Llewellyn Moxey’s (The Saint, Magnum P. I., and Murder, She Wrote) debut into film from being primarily a TV director and writer George Baxt (Circus of Horrors, Horror on Snape Island, I Promised to Pay and The Shadow of the Cat) tells a story of a young college student Nan Barlow (Venetia Stevenson of Darby’s Rangers, Day of the Outlaw, Seven Way from Sundown and the Sergeant Was a Lady) who spends her winter vacation researching a paper on witchcraft.  

Hey what's with the dirty stone table?

Her professor Alan Driscoll (Sir Christopher Lee of Horror of Dracula, Dracula: Prince of Darkness, Island of the Burning Damned, Five Golden Dragons, and The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism) tells her she is best to travel to Whitewood Massachusetts and their vast libraries on the subject matter.  And hey if you cannot trust Christopher Lee and his intentions on your well being, well I ask, “Who can you trust?”   Nan encounters a young woman but the name of Elizabeth Selwyn (Patricia Jessel of The Man Upstairs, The Queen and The Rebels and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum) who happens to look identical to a woman accused of using witchcraft in 1852 where she was burned at the stake.  The town in fact is most famous for such.  Nan finds herself to be abducted by hooded figures and dragged down to the catacombs directly below the very hotel she checked in…but she does not check out. 

Cosplay gone awry!

Now, just a quick little tidbit for you Wicca folk out there who might possibly be reading this.  The film portrays anyone practicing witchcraft as devil worshipers as well the Black mass conglomerate and the like; so you have been warned and aside from that slight offense to your religion, it really is an enjoyable movie.

Worried that Nan has not returned her brother Richard (Denis Lotis of The Inbetween Age, Make Mine a Million and Glamour) and her boyfriend Bill (Tom Naylor of Just My Luck, The Vise and No Safety Ahead) go off to investigate her last known whereabouts.  The duo set off on said journey when a car accident happens and Bill has been benched for unnecessary dumb driving.  Richard heads into town and meets the daughter of the town Reverend, Patricia (Bette St. John of High Tide at Noon, Corridors of Blood and The Robe) and perhaps she can shed light on the eerie quiet town.

This particular movie is shot in gorgeous black and white so I am all tingly from that alone but of course the sound is captured in mono which was common back in the day.  Its 1960 people!   There was no surround Dolby digital yet.   With an amazing spherical lens capture the stages look amazing, lighting top notch and yes there are more than a handful of movie clichés attributed of this type of storytelling but it is a well groomed flick thanks to post production.  What you have is an English production of English actors speaking an American accent and hell they pulled it off.  

I say, this dungeon is filthy and I wish to register a complaint.

Funniest thing about this movie is it was somehow compared to Psycho for the following reasons.  Blonde protagonist dies in remote hotel and male counterpart comes looking for her.   That’s it.   And while this is no Hitchcock I can honestly say this critic enjoyed it immensely.  I hope you will as well.

Horror Grab Bag Week: The Thirsty Dead

Welcome back readers to Horror Grab Bag Week.  This time around I thought I would try to give more of a technical aspect to the movie.   Describe the camera pans and zooms and various techniques to such to give you a more of an objective view.  Less mockery and more observation, so feel free to be shocked.  Actor Terry Becker (Compulsion, Perry Mason, The Asphalt Jungle, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Neighborhood Watch) tried his start in both writing and directing in a horror exploitation genre about abducting young women and dragging them off to parts unknown.  Given most of these girls were street urchins; not too many eyebrows were raised so without further adieu I give you The Thirsty Dead a.k.a. The Blood Cult of Shangri-La.

Silly frat boys, that's not how you pick up girls.

You make friends quickly when you are sharing a spoiler!

Our footage starts with shots of the sea showing a few ships during sunrise to sunset.  The significance to that day to night transition is…Yeah haven’t a clue other than it was available and you get to decipher the symbolism.  Also this is dead quiet for 30 seconds and then a title card followed by a bit of reverb in your speakers.  Then it is off to the go-go bar!  Class all the way I say.   You will also find this has been recorded in mono and the print has not be cleaned up from living on VHS for so long so there is some scratches on the film and the occasion audible pop sound.  Four young women are abducted from the streets of Manila Philippines, through miles of sewer to the main rivers and rowed out for a fair distance from civilization.  I am speaking the middle of nowhere and getting away on foot would be damn near impossible.    

Bless me Rocky for I have been a naughty boy.

Our girls discover they have been snatched for the orchestrations of a cult and not some white slavery sex trade.  Their leader Baru (character actor John Considine of Combat!, Gomer Pyle: USMC, The F.B.I., Mannix and Doctor Death: Seeker of Souls) looks like a genetic hybrid of Peter Lorre and Mike Connors but he is in a flamboyant white high collar cloak that Doctor Strange would have turned away.  I thought he was auditioning for Sigfrid and Roy. Baru tells the girls that one with be chosen to appease their god and the others are just for the ceremony…of blood sacrifice.   I should also point out they seem to worship a head in a red glass cube.   Looks like someone lopped off Sidney Poitier’s head and encased it in plexi-glass.  

Ladies and gentleman, ICE CUUUUUUUUBBBBBBEEEE!!!

Now I did recognize two of the ladies in question brought to this cult.  Laura (Jennifer Billingsley of Lady in a Cage, The F.B.I., White Lightning, Police Story and Hollywood Man) and Claire (Judith McConnell of Star Trek T.O.S., The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, The Brotherhood of Satan and How to Seduce a Woman) and to be fair their acting was impressive for this film in spite how goofy the script is.

Yes, this is where I am going to nitpick and point things out.   The cavern location looks like the land of cardboard cutouts and trash bags to conceal the backdrop.  Our cult extras look like they raided the fabric bin of the original Star Trek series.  I swear at least 5 of them look as though they snagged some of the Mirror Mirror costumes or they are wearing these garish robes straight out of The Blind Dead series.  Many canvas died for their wardrobes.

over friendly zoom there camera man.  Sheesh.

Most of the sets are filmed on location and the underground lair is actually a former stronghold on the island so definite props for that.  Dallies of the sewer shots are all hand held and so steady.  I think the main issue I had with this film is it is dialogue driven and sounds as though the girls are formulating plans of escape but there is little to no action in it.   I am afraid it drones on a bit and well all the characters (ladies) are pretty one dimensional so you may detract from them and care not for their path.

Ew, Sweat socks!!!