Review: THE LAS VEGAS SERIAL KILLER (1986), Ray Dennis Steckler's best worst

[William S. Wilson]

THE LAS VEGAS SERIAL KILLER (1986)
starring Pierre Agostino
Directed by Ray Dennis Steckler

You know for Ray Dennis Steckler to do a sequel, it has to be special. And special this film is. Picking up 7 years after THE HOLLYWOOD STRANGLER MEETS THE SKID ROW SLASHER (1979), THE LAS VEGAS SERIAL KILLER is one of the most inept yet alluring films I have ever seen.

Here is the set up: Pierre Agostino gets out of prison on a technicality (“We never found the bodies so he must have been lying.”) and walks around Las Vegas for 90 minutes. Occasionally he stops to ogle a woman dancing before strangling random women while “Die! Garbage! Die!” is dubbed onto the soundtrack. Interspersed between the killings are the exploits of two small time hoods who randomly rob people. They seem to always show up where Agostino is whether it be a bar or a pizza parlor adorned with Steckler movie posters (yeah right!). That is all that happens in the film until the two robbers run into our titular killer again and shoot him. Fin.

It really amazes me how Steckler got progressively worse as his career went on. I mean something like THE CHOOPER at least has sync sound. Here he took a page out of Charles Nizet’s directing and shot most of the scenes without sound. Only one scene appears to have been shot with sound on location. Everything else has dialogue looped in later over reaction shots from characters. In essence it is a silent film with a dialogue score as you never see lips matching dialogue. This produces a few funny bits like when they dub the voice of a lady passing out casino flyers and a random person responds, “Ah, get outta my face!” Agostino, a Nizet veteran, looks damn rough reprising his role as the killer. When you get a close up of those eyes, you can feel the pain.

If anything, this film serves as an amazing time capsule of mid-80s Las Vegas. You want to see sleazy? This is it. Nothing makes my skin crawl more than the backyard party for Cash Flagg that Agostino crashes. A bevy of young girls surround by the creepiest old men you will ever see. Did I mention the men were in speedos? Steckler didn’t shoot with sound because he probably didn’t want the audience to hear the number of “I’ll make ya famous” lines being dropped in succession. The film also captures the 80s Las Vegas strip with all the glory of the short shorts and unisex feathered hairdos. Take that Martin Scorsese and your CASINO!

Media Blasters definitely did a great job on the DVD though. In addition to the film with an audio commentary option, you have two Steckler shorts (FACE OF EVIL and SLASHED) that I haven’t seen anywhere before. Old Steck went even cheaper as these films have no dialogue. Instead music is looped over the various scenes and they run about a half hour each. For the Steckler fan, they are a must see but maybe not must hear. There is also a Steckler interview (where he looks like he is in the FBI Witness Protection Program) and trailers for all of his major works.

[Marty McKee]

How's the Steckler interview? On the CHOOPER DVD, he's hilariously self-delusional concerning the quality of his work.

[William S. Wilson]

In this interview he spends all the time talking about the distribution process in grindhouse theaters and how he was losing money on the deal (like getting paid $25 to have his film at the bottom of a double bill with distributors taking a 50% cut of that!).

[Kevin Heffernan]

"How's the Steckler interview? On the CHOOPER DVD, he's hilariously self-delusional concerning the quality of his work."

If he's self-delusional, it must be a recent development, since most of his interviews at least up through THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE FILM SHOW were equally hilariously self-deprecating and obviously revelled in the put-on.

Still, INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES and RAT FINK A BOO are Dada genre masterpieces, the former showing Steckler's (or at least Zigmond's) complete absorption of Kenneth Anger's pop-horror aesthetic just a year or so after SCORPIO RISING was first screened in LA.