Vice Squad

"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.

Vice Squad is a mean, nasty, intense and sadistic B-movie. I don't mean this as a negative, because that is exactly what the movie intends to be.

Vice Squad pulls no punches and is absolutely relentless.

The standout performance of this movie comes from Wings Hauser's portrayal of the the psychotic and homicidal pimp RamRod. Hauser is absolutely incredible in this movie, every second he is on screen he is frightening and menacing. He always seems like he is a half second from completely losing it, even when he is "seducing" the hooker Princess, he seems like he can hardly control himself from doing something awful.

RamRod is a nightmare of a human being. If he really existed, I don't care how tough or brave you think you are, the smartest thing you could do if you encountered him would be to politely get away from him. With RamRod it's not about him being tough, it's about him being truly, truly dangerous. No empathy, no remorse and no mercy.

I'm not going to go into detail about the movie. I think Vice Squad, like any other movie should just unfold in front of you.

I fully realize that this movie is not for everyone and if someone told me that they thought it was disgusting and there was nothing positive about it.I would understand that.

That being said, if you want to watch a cat and mouse/cop chase movie, set on the seedy streets of Los Angeles that doesn't hide its true intentions and never winks at the audience. Vice Squad has the goods.

I remember this movie very well as one of the most suspenseful movies of the 80's. Definitely Wing's best performance. Very menacing as the pimp "Ramrod". You really feel for his victims and want to see him get his.

Don't watch "Terror in the Isles" before you see this movie. The clips they show give the ending away.

Watch for a small part by Re-Run (What's Happening).

Where's the DVD?!?!

Nine out of ten stars.

I enjoyed this film. Wings Hauser is so good and has such presence. When you watch him, as Ram Rod, you hate him. This film is taut and gritty. It captured street life, perfectly. I like the fact that the film doesn't linger on morality. It had quite a nihilistic feel to it. There's one particular scene, in which Season Hubley is at a bar talking 'shop' with her fellow hookers. It was a scene of pure honesty. Some women do what they've got to do to make a living and there's nothing wrong with it.

Wings Hauser plays a crazed pimp, Ram Rod, who loves to punish his hookers by torturing them to death. Gary Swanson, plays a determined vice cop out to stop this psycho. When Hubley's best friend is killed by Hauser, she is blackmailed, by Swanson, to go undercover to bring this psycho pimp down.

This film had such a relentless pace and it puts you on the edge of your seat. This is the type of film that graced the screens at 'The Deuce', during it's hey-day. It's a forgotten gem, an exploitation classic.

In Los Angeles, a woman known as Princess (Season Hubley) is a down on her luck single mother who turns to prostitution in order to support her young daughter Lisa (Nicole Volkoff) who's living with Princess' mom in San Diego. As Princess works the notorious Hollywood Boulevard while avoiding the LAPD's vice cops, Vice Detectives Walsh (Gary Swanson) and Edwards (Maurice Emanuel) investigate a recent assault at a motel of prostitute Ginger (Nina Blackwood) by sadistic and misogynistic pimp Ramrod (Wings Hauser) whom Ginger refuses to identify as the assailant before dying from her injuries. Driven to get Ramrod off the street, Walsh and Edwards bring in Princess who is a friend of Ginger's who force her to look at Ginger's brutalized corpse and threaten her with a drug bust that will lose custody of her daughter unless she helps with a sting to bring in Ramrod.

Vice Squad is a 1982 crime thriller directed by Gary Sherman. The film came about out of an initial desire by producers to make a television documentary about Hollywood's prostitution scene utilizing interviews with actual pimps, prostitutes, and vice cops but after running into logistical limits with television censorship regarding the subject matter it was ultimately decided to re-tool the project as a narrative feature film. The cast and crew went very in depth with real life sex workers and Vice Cops with the LAPD collaborating with the filmmakers on a making of documentary of the film and Season Hubley herself spent ten weeks with Hollywood prostitutes to research her role of Princess. While the film was a decent success given the lurid appeal of its subject matter in the marketing by Avco Embassy, rather surprisingly critical reception was more positive than you might think with some outlets like the New York Times noting the exploitation aspects, but also applauding the craft, acting, and even aspects of the writing for the film. Vice Squad is undeniably exploitation filmmaking, but it's also a lot smarter and with more to say than you might think from its marketing.

Season Hubley is very good in the role of Princess and while there's pretty standard stuff for a movie like this where she's "trying to make ends meet" for her daughter to position her as the good girl in a bad situation, she plays the role with a lot of charm, wit, and humor and gets some humanizing scenes with her fellow sex workers or some of her less objectionable Johns. However, stealing every scene he's in is Wings Hauser's portrayal of the film's antagonist Ramrod who portrays this air of fake swagger that when the situation calls for it will peel away to reveal his unhinged violent and sadistic streak that makes you root for his comeuppance. Gary Swanson and Maurice Emanuel are also good as the primary Vice Detectives Walsh and Edwards and while they're technically the "heroes" in this story the movie also shows them as being very manipulative and aggressive particularly when it comes to how they involve Princess making this less a story of good versus evil and more bad versus worse.

Much like the William Friedkin film Cruising, even though there is technically a plot here (though unlike Cruising's whodunnit Vice Squad's more a howcatchem), the true focus here is on the atmosphere and world portrayed in the film. While not necessarily as envelope pushing as Cruising was, Vice Squad really feels like a film where there's an unmistakable authenticity to what's being portrayed and how unclean the world presented feels that a viewing makes you feel like you need a shower afterwards (in the best possible way). Utilizing aspects from real-life anecdotes from actual sex workers some scenarios do strain credibility (one sequence involving a wedding dress and a coffin definitely left me with some questions) but it helps make the film an engaging experience.

Vice Squad is a solidly made exploitation film that has a lot more craft and cleverness in its writing and filmmaking than you'd initially believe. Featuring good performances across the board and dripping with a sleazy atmosphere, Vice Squad provides the thrills and the lurid details you expect from a movie like this and adds that little something extra to make itself stand out.