During the early 1980s, Janice Cole and Holly Dale directed a pivotal documentary on prostitution in Canada, with their gritty 16mm camera trained on Vancouver’s Davie Street, branded in the film’s prologue as “the prostitution capitol of Canada”…
Gary Sherman’s gritty take on Los Angeles’ vice squad and the rotten lives of prostitutes divided critics but proved successful at the box office, and although it’s easy to brand the film as sadistic exploitive drive-in fodder, it’s also one of his best films, benefiting from a solid cast of then relative unknowns, and gorgeous cinematography by the great John Alcott…
After the success of Vice Squad (1983), executive produce / prolific schlockmeister Sandy Howard figured a lighter redo of Gary Sherman’s nasty, grungy drama was worth a try, maybe fashioning a new script that could be spun off into a theatrical franchise or TV series…
After the launch of Pay TV stations in the U.S. and soon after Canada, the 1980s became cluttered with direct to video and straight to cable films, most being highly disposable productions designed to fill a time slot and video rental rack than stand out among the crowd…
Podcast featuring edited post-Suspiria 4K Q&A with Goblin and Rue Morgue’s Aaron von Luption + Free Screener links to my experimental doc BSV 1172 in celebration of Video Store Day.
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