To say that this is Fred Olen Ray's best film doesn't quite cover it. It's the only half-way decent movie he ever made. The movie has - gasp! - actual characters you can tell apart from a block of wood, and doesn't spend - gasp! - over an hour of screen time showing said characters running around doing nothing. Furthermore - gasp! - the script is cheesy and entertaining in the best way, filled with ridiculous one liners and double entendres in a spoof of film noir.
The guy who plays the main character, "Jack Chandler", actually has a face and manner to suit the hard boiled detective, and the movie also benefits from the scream queen double bill of the beautiful Michelle Bauer and Linnea Quigley. Genre fans will appreciate Gunnar Hansen's appearance in another movie to do with chainsaws, though his "performance" makes you wish he'd stuck with the mask and apron.
The plot is something to do with a chainsaw worshipping cult from ancient Egypt - no kidding - who cut people up to sacrifice them to their deity. Bauer has a great nude scene as one of the hardware worshiping minions, hacking a guy up and getting her beautiful naked body sprayed with fake blood. She is so sexy right from her first appearance in the movie, in which she happens to be clothed, that it makes you wish other starlets in b-flicks could study her performance and realise it's about more than just taking your top off.
Linnea Quigley is also fantastic as the good girl gone bad, the role she was usually most comfortable in.
If you're a fan of b-horror movies and haven't seen this one, it's well worth checking out. It's typically low key and low budget, but the starlets light up the screen, and it's entertaining throughout.