You’ve got to give it to Ray Dennis Steckler’s The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher: It has a great title. It’s second only to Steckler’s The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies. While it’s not quite up to the zany levels of that classic, it is one of Ray’s better films.
Johnathan (Pierre Agostino) is a serial killer who hires models to pose nude for him before he strangles them to death. Meanwhile, a lonely woman who owns a bookstore (Carolyn Brandt) goes around slicing and dicing the bums that hang around Skid Row. And… They meet. That’s the plot! I mean, what more do you need to know about a movie called The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher?
Steckler gives you exactly what you would want/expect from a movie with that title. No more. No less. If you were hoping for more, sorry you’re out of luck.
Steckler does a pretty good job, all things considered. There’s enough strangling and slashing to keep the plot moving forward (my favorite scene was when the Strangler killed a girl who was wearing nothing but a KISS beach towel and then Steckler gives us a close-up to the band's Destroyer album), and the Taxi Driver-esque scenes of Agostino stomping around Hollywood Boulevard are rather moody
This almost feels like Steckler’s version of a Doris Wishman movie. He shot it silently and most of the dialogue occurs in narration as characters’ thoughts. The fact that sex and violence are often combined is very much like one of Wishman’s roughies from the ‘60s. The use of the term “photographer’s models” instead of “hookers” was also pretty dated by the time the film came out, further making it feel like a lost relic from the ‘60s that happened to be released in the late ‘70s. That’s not a criticism, just an observation.
This might be Steckler’s purest movie. There’s no fat on it, except for the scenes of Agostino in his coop petting his pet pigeons. Or the random sex club roller disco scene at Plato’s Retreat West. (Steckler would later make a porno of that title using the same location a few years later.)
Steckler also wrote some great lines like, “I was right. She IS just like all the others. Worse maybe”, “You want a shot of my buttocks? Doo-Doo-Doo!”, and “Die, garbage!”
The last name of Pierre Agostino’s character is “Click”, which makes this sort of a loose sequel to Steckler’s The Thrill Killers. Also, the title, The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher calls to mind the alternate title of The Incredibly Strange Creatures, Teenage Psycho Meets Bloody Mary. Other Steckler signatures include: A Yellow-on-Black opening title sequence (like Blood Shack), scenic travelogue shots of the sex theaters and porno shops of Hollywood Boulevard (which make this a nice time capsule of the era), scenes that take place on the beach, and weird narration. We also get a little bit of Steckler’s trademark self-promotion as posters for his adult films, Teenage Massage Parlor and Teenage Hustler can be glimpsed in the background in one scene. However, this time around Brandt and Agostino are really the only members of Steckler’s Stock Players to put in appearances.
When I first saw this on video back in the ‘90s, I thought it was okay. Probably a ** ½ flick. Now, seeing it in the proper context of Steckler’s work, I have a better appreciation for it. I’d say it’s a *** movie now. Heck, it looks like a goddamned masterpiece next to Sinthia: The Devil’s Doll and Blood Shack.
Steckler followed this up seven years later with a sequel, Las Vegas Serial Killer.
AKA: The Hollywood Strangler. AKA: The Model Killer.
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