Hollywood 90028 (1973)

          Some grungy movies are such prime fodder for cultural analysis that their actual cinematic merits (or lack thereof) are inconsequential—the serious-minded viewer consumes the film as an appetizer for the rhetorical feast. So it is with Hollywood 90028, which at various times has been called The Hollywood Hillside Strangler, Insanity, and Twisted Throats. As those lurid monikers suggest, the folks responsible for selling this picture to an unsuspecting public attempted to brand it a straightforward shocker, when in fact Hollywood 90028 is something very different. At the risk of making this crudely rendered flick sound too grand, Hollywood 90028 is partially the character study of a sociopath and partially a rumination on the link between voyeurism and violence. On good days, Mark (Christopher Augustine) is a soft-spoken cameraman paying his dues by shooting stag films while he dreams of going legit. On bad days, Mark picks up women and strangles them to death. Writer-director Christina Hornisher lacks the skill to properly realize this premise, so most of the film comprises dull passages of Mark wandering around Los Angeles, visiting porn stores, and trying to develop a relationship with Michele (Jeannette Dilger), a stag-film performer who has issues of her own. (Sidenote: The picture’s most believably human moment is the vignette of Mark listening to a phone message from Michele in which she explains her reasons for ending their relationship and then presents music by her sensitive new boyfriend—ouch.)

          To get a sense of how little happens in Hollywood 90028, more than 45 minutes elapse between the first and second kills, and the movie is only 76 minutes long. Yet the picture has four noteworthy elements. First, it’s somewhat rare as a female-directed psychosexual story from the early ‘70s. Second, the leisurely pacing allows viewers to luxuriate in shots of sleazy vintage LA. Third, all that moody piano music on the soundtrack is courtesy of Basil Poledouris, who became a major Hollywood composer in the ’80s and ’90s. Fourth, the final scene of Hollywood 90028 is genuinely arresting, a nasty distillation of metaphorical and thematical concepts the rest of the film struggles to articulate. The content of the final scene won’t be spoiled here, but for those willing to slog through the film’s grimy tedium (ogling nude scenes, meandering dialogue, questionable editing), there are conversations to be had about Hollywood 90028, even though similar chats could just as easily get prompted by better movies exploring related subject matter, from Peeping Tom (1960) to Body Double (1984) to 8mm (1999) and beyond. There is something to be said, however, about using a film from the cinematic gutter as a means of considering the medium’s darker aspects.

Hollywood 90028: FUNKY