Movie Review #13: Angel (1984)

 

Starring:  Cliff Gorman, Susan Tyrrell, Dick Shawn, Rory Calhoun, Donna Wilkes and John Diehl

The Review: Ah, this brings me back to the day when my mom went into a weird kinda grocery story (they would sell groceries to other grocery stories but would also sell groceries to the public.) and I decided to wander on over to Nintendo World. Yes, they called themselves that and No, they did not have the okay from Nintendo. Nintendo World was a bastion of VHS tapes, and when I collected them boy howdy they had hundreds. I think the tapes were around 3.99, 6.99 and 9.99. This was like 2000 when you probably still could get that for a VHS tape. Now it's 50 cents if your lucky. Unless you own some weirdo rare horror movie like Tales from the Quadead Zone. I don't know if I bought this on my first or second or third or even fifty fifth visit to the store. I just know that any time we went around this area this was a place we'd go. I even got Ghoulies III: Ghoulies go to College and C.H.U.D. II there. If that doesn't make a store great than I don't know what ever could. I believe the copy of this movie that I had was a Starmaker tape which had to be one of the cheapest VHS tapes I had, but I didn't care because this movie was great!

Now here comes the rewatch. I actually probably like this movie more now than I did then and I thought it was pretty damn cool that I had to go find the sequels as soon as possible. All 4 movies were in my possession at one point or another. This movie follows Angel aka Molly, who as the clever tagline tells you is a high school student by day, Hollywood Hooker by night. Yes, this movie is about teen prostitution and the main character is 15 (but played by a 26 year old woman if I recall correctly). Her mother and father have left her and she doesn't want to end up in a foster home and all that. She's a prostitute to make money to go to school so she can end up in college. There's also creepy assholes at her school who won't leave her alone. A police officer who wants her off the streets but can't get her off the streets. And a found family of street performers. Oh, and a murderer who enjoys necrophilia. All in this New World Pictures classic. New World Pictures was one hell of a film studio man. Started by Roger Corman in 1970 and sold around 1985 to another group of people who would make movies like Hellraiser. The second group of owners would also end up owning Marvel Comics, which I've mentioned before. This clearly has to be one of the last movies Roger Corman made because this movie has approximately 67,000 breasts in it. Roger Corman was all about the boobage.

This is still a movie that's a lot of fun to watch. Some really tense thriller scenes, like when the killer has one of the prostitutes and theres two others really close to them but she cant scream to them. There's also a lot of great actors in this flick. I'm not really sure who my favorite is. Everyone does a fine job with there characters and you end up feeling sorry for the ones who end up dying, especially Mae a transvestite who loves Molly more than her own mother ever did (Mae's words not mine) I'm not even sure transvestite or prostitute are even P.C. terms anymore. I guess I'll find out. Cliff Gorman is pretty good as the hard nosed cop who doesn't even know how to console someone. I really should talk about the movie The Night of the Juggler on this blog. Rory Calhoun MIGHT be my favorite as an old timey western star who busks for money on the Hollywood strip, but then again Susan Tyrrell and Dick Shawn have great chemistry together too. It's weird how a movie about teen prostitution and mentions of necrophilia can be weirdly wholesome. I love how all the street people watch out for each other. It's great stuff.

Final Verdict: If you enjoy 80s thriller movies about prostitution like Vice Squad with Wings Hauser (the guy who wrote this wrote that too) or Fear City, you will definitely enjoy this movie. The only problem with this movie is I wanted Rick and his asshole friends to get a comeuppance. The fuckers ruined it for Molly.

Next Time: This movie had a sequel, Avenging Angel, so let's do that one!