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Absolutely Fantastic

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

This is true grit originating from the eighties. It is almost unbelievable that this is based on real life as there is so much sleaze. Everyone in this film is either a prostitute, a pervert or a cop. The story is good though and this lifts the production. It is hampered by rather bad technical aspects such as jump cutting, continuity and a bloke with a lens standing clearly in shot in a supposedly empty room. Not scary but the action is oddly thrilling. It is violent although not extreme or gory. Alright for a watch as long as you can get past the huge stack of eighties inner-city clichés.

"Princess" (Season Hubley) is what is known as an "outlaw" hooker, meaning that she answers to no pimp. She's also the mother of an adorable little girl. She agrees to help intense vice detective Tom Walsh (Gary Swanson) trap a particularly evil pimp with the memorable moniker of "Ramrod" (Wings Hauser). Ramrod is a sadist who enjoys mutilating prostitutes, and has the tenacity of The Terminator. When he realizes that Princess set him up, he becomes determined to get revenge. After he makes an escape from the cops, he spends an action-packed night hunting her down."Vice Squad" is a solid credit for the under appreciated director Gary A. Sherman. Sherman had already made two excellent fright features, "Raw Meat" and "Dead & Buried". Loathe to be typecast as a genre director, he took on this project, and does a fine job with it. He gives it great pace and entirely convincing atmosphere. This movie really does immerse its viewers in a seedy L.A. underworld. The characters are often flamboyant but believable. Cinematographer John Alcott gives everything a stylish look. To be sure, the material is plenty sleazy, but that's entirely the point. The script was written by co-executive producer Sandy Howard, Robert Vincent O'Neill (director of the exploitation classic "Angel"), and "Kenneth Peters", a pseudonym for a real life L.A. detective who provided all important technical advice.The violence is as harsh and off putting as it should be, and there's great curiosity value in discovering the various fetishes and perversions that johns are prone to enjoy.Hubley is good in the lead role; Princess may take her lumps before the story ends, but she also gives Ramrod a hell of a good fight. Swanson is likewise effective as our hard assed hero. A steady parade of familiar actors play roles big and small: Pepe Serna, Beverly Todd, original MTV VJ Nina Blackwood, Lydia Lei, Kelly Piper, Fred Berry, Michael Ensign, Jonathan Haze, Robert Miano, Stack Pierce, and Cheryl Smith. But the person who leaves the biggest impression is the excellent Hauser, who gives us a creepily charismatic villain for the ages. Furthermore, Wings also entertains us by growling and snarling the ultra catchy rock theme song "Neon Slime".This is a gem of a B movie: flashy, trashy, and most certainly *not* dull.Eight out of 10.

The thriller that brought Wings Hauser to the attention of film-makers and audiences as the manipulative, sadistic, and psychopathic pimp preying on his meal tickets with callous ambivalence. Season Hubley is the call-girl who has Hauser arrested, Swanson the detective, but before they can indict him, he's on the loose like a wild animal, out for revenge.Hauser's intense portrayal of the urban cowboy with a seriously mean streak is probably his best role to date; edgy and offbeat, exuding charm and an omnipotence that masks a violent alter ego and hair-trigger temper - the scene in which he uses electrocution to enforce his authority is quite shocking (no pun intended).Often dismissed as a sleaze-a-thon, and rarely referred any credit, "Vice Squad" was one of a number of films in the early eighties that dealt with the fringe sex industry and the shadowy figures that make it a dangerous profession. The cast is full of familiar faces with Beverly Todd as Hubley's ill-fated friend and confidante, Rainbeaux Smith (in one of her last roles) as a working girl, Stack Pierce, Jonathan Haze and Grand L.Bush in minor roles.Not an emulation of the DePalma stylings (e.g. "Body Double"), it's volatile and gritty in atmosphere, more a match with "Cruising" or the subsequent slasher movies "New York Ripper" and "Fear City" in its downcast, brutal tone, director Sherman has got lucky with Hauser achieving such a memorable characterisation, surely among the most notorious of screen villains in the annals of film history.

The sleazy side of LA street life on the Sunset strip with psychotic killer pimp Ramrod(Wings Hauser)set up by hooker Princess(Season Hubley)in cooperation with the police after he had cut up her best friend Ginger. After escaping police, Ramrod will search the strip(..with no reservations about using violence as a means for extracting Princess' whereabouts from those he questions)for Princess with one goal in mind and that's repeating what he did with Ginger on her. It's up to Tom Walsh(Gary Swanson)and the Vice squad to find Ramrod before he gets to her.The ugly, nasty side of prostitution is exposed in this thriller with Hauser effectively scary as the sicko, matched by Hubley as one tough, foul-mouthed broad. Mostly profane and unpleasant, but also fast-paced and suspenseful.