“VICE SQUAD” (1982)

Cinema Review by Calvin Smitty | Smutlife

Over the course of a night we follow a prostitute, a sociopath and the cops who search the seedy backdrop of early 80′s Hollywood.

I’m not going to lie but there are couple scenes in this film where our villain Ramrod is beating women on his way to mutilate them that had me squirm in my couch.  That reaction comes from either discovering that violence against women isn’t funny. Said woman in one of the scenes is early MTV’s own Nina Blackwood or the actor playing Ramrod, Wings Hauser, is either a fantastic performer or an equally fantastic crazy person.  I’ve always thought the J.Lo movie “Enough”, where she gets beat up by her boyfriend for 90 minutes was always hilarious.  I don’t really care one way or the other about Nina Blackwood.  (If Martha Quinn were in the role instead, different story.)  So that leaves me to believe that our villain here is an unspoken Javier Bardem or Anton Sugar incarnate.

I also have to believe that Wings Hauser scared the shit out of the filmmakers on set to the point that he was able to convince them to use his song “Neon Slime” as the movie’s theme.  I cannot think of another example where the villain was singing the theme during the opening title and closing credits.  Amazing!

Hauser’s Ramrod (that sounds much smuttier than intended) beats prostitutes something fierce then finds a wire hanger and does some god awful stuff to them.  Here’s the thing though, Ramrod never carries the wire hangers with him?! He always finds them where ever he ends up beating the women.  The first scene takes place in a hotel room.  Fair enough.  There’d definitely be a hanger in there.  Now fast forward to the end when we’re well aware of his MO. Ramrod chases our leading prostitute into a random clothes warehouse – LOTS OF WIRE HANGERS!!!  Shit just got real….real insane.

Memorable Quotes

It really must be said that this film was released prior to Clint Eastwood’s “Sudden Impact.”  You know the film where Dirty Harry utters the famous words “Go ahead.  Make my day.”  It must be said because our cop hero in this film says, “Go ahead.  Make my day.”  Did Eastwood lift the line from “Vice Squad”?  Is it a coincidence?  Am I the only one who will look into this further?

Verdict

“Vice Squad” is a must see for many reasons, but if I had to pick one it would be seeing Fred “Rerun” Berry have his testicles cut off.  He’s in the film for no more than 2 minutes, so essentially he’s in it just to have his balls cut off.  Great stuff!

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