Cannibal Hookers (Donald Farmer, 1987)

Last night, I put on some stylish yet casual evening wear, poured a glass of red wine, stoked the fireplace, settled in to my favorite chair, and watched Cannibal Hookers. (Full disclosure: the wine was boxed, I do not have a fireplace, and my evening wear was not stylish.) Cannibal Hookers is either the first or second feature-length cinematic masterpiece (depending on whether the 54-minute Demon Queen counts as a feature) from low-budget L.A. horror auteur Donald Farmer. Farmer is still at it, and his most recent release is a 2019 remake of Cannibal Hookers. He was preparing to shoot Debbie Does Demons when the pandemic hit. 

This was my first exposure to the singular, demented world of Farmer, and I enjoyed the ride, even the parts that made little to no sense (those parts make up most of the running time). Cannibal Hookers is the timeless story of a coven of cannibalistic sex workers who live in a run-down, mostly empty castle-mansion on the outskirts of Hollywood with a dimwitted, cannibalistic brute named Lobo (Gary J. Levinson). Lobo does the heavy lifting and chores and all the crap the hookers don't want to do while they pick up johns and bring them back to the weird mansion and drink their blood and eat their hearts and fingers and various other body parts, with Lobo getting the leftovers.

Meanwhile, a couple of college girls who are ready to party, Hilary (Amy Waddell) and Deedee (Annette Munro), are pledging Los Angeles' most notorious sorority, Zama Gata Bata (yes, that's how they spell it), which, because of the film's budget, appears to have only one existing member, Stephanie (the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling's Sheila Best). For some reason, Hilary and Deedee think joining this sorority with one member is their only chance to party even though they live in Los Angeles. Hilary also has to contend with her anti-sorority mother (Hack-O-Lantern's Katina Garner), who calls the sorority the sleaziest organization in the city and who urges Hilary to hang out with the classy rich people at the country club they are exclusive members of instead. This dialogue is a bit weird, because Hilary and her mother live in a modest, working-class apartment, but I did enjoy Hilary's response to her mother: "I don't want to hang out with assholes, Mom."

For the sorority initiation, Hilary and Deedee have to pretend to be hookers for one night on Sunset Boulevard, pick up one john each, and take the men to an address Stephanie gives them. Unbeknownst to the pledges, the address is the location of the cannibal hookers' weird-ass mansion, which Stephanie sends them to because she thinks it's one of your standard, non-cannibal houses of ill repute. Hilary and Deedee also have to avoid Hilary's boyfriend of one week, Bruce (Tommy Carrano) and his boys Darrell (Donald Trimborn) and Dwight (Matt Borlenghi), or Hilary will have to explain that they can't go out on Saturday night because she has to be a hooker for a day. Bruce and the bros are, due to budgetary reasons, the only members of their frat. Something tells me everyone is going to cross paths before this crazy damn weekend is over.

My description of the plot has done a disservice to the magic and wonder inherent in Donald Farmer's signature writing and directing style. The movie is shot on what looks like an expensive camcorder, the acting is some of the worst you will ever see (though absolutely charming in its terribleness), the narrative follows its own weird rhythm, the whole thing plays like a porn film with the sex scenes removed (and was in fact distributed on video by an adult film company), one of the closing scenes is repeated twice for what appears to be a technical error that was simply left in the finished product, and so many narrative loose ends are left hanging by the comically abrupt ending. We also never quite understand whether the cannibal hookers are Satanists, vampires, zombies, or run-of-the-mill cannibals, or whether the whole thing is caused by a virus. There is a lot of evidence supporting and disproving every scenario.

This movie is an inept blast, a fascinating time capsule of a sliver of 1987 Los Angeles life, and a goldmine of hilarious dialogue. (For example: two detectives are staking out the city's nightlife to try to catch the cannibal killers, and the dumb cop says, after seeing some ladies of the night: "Why are they dressed like that? Must be the new fashions." Exasperated cop says: "They're hookers, you dick!")

As I mentioned earlier, Farmer is still making movies. Born in 1956 in the small city of Pittsburg, Kansas, Farmer has been cranking out the zero-budget horror in Los Angeles since the '80s. Some of his other titles include Scream Dream (the story of a witch who gets fired from the rock band she's in, so she puts a curse on her replacement), Vampire Cop, Space Kid, An Erotic Vampire in Paris, Dorm of the Dead, and Shark Exorcist (the story of a demonic nun who talks the devil into possessing a great white shark). God bless this man.