Top Trailers: VICE SQUAD
ViceSquad is one of the exploitation classics of the 1980's. It'sgot the right combination of sleaze and style, it hits as hard as anexploitation classic is supposed to hit and it's topped off by an indelibleperformance from Wings Hauser as the psychotic pimp Ramrod. All these elements are highlighted in itstrailer, which happens to be one of the best and punchiest of its kind.
Technically speaking, the Vice Squad trailer is a teaser: it only runs one minute andbypasses such niceties as plot elements, character descriptions and dialogue togive you a highly concentrated essence of the film's tone and content. It's built around an simple but effectiveframing device where a grim-voiced narrator delivers a few lines at the beginning,followed by a bullet-paced montage that stops on a dime for a few more terselines of narration and some end title cards.
This teaser pumps up tension and throws punches from itsopening moments: percussion sizzles under a medium-paced zoom on the Hollywoodsign in Los Angeles as the narrator muses "Hollywood:the dream... and the nightmare." The second half of that phrase ispunctuated by a hooker's limp body getting shoved out of a sedan into a pile oftrash as a derelict howls "Somebody call the cops!" The latterelement is the only line of dialogue in this trailer.
From there, we're off to the races on the seamier sideof Hollywood Boulevard. Ominous metronomic rimshots begin to punctuate thejittery, cymbal-heavy percussive sounds. The trailer begins to smack the vieweraround with a series of images that alternate three themes representing thefilm's elements.
The first theme is no-holds-barred brutality: Ramrodslamming a prostitute face-first into a car's dashboard, cops subduing unruly lowlifes,a mirror getting smashed, etc. The second theme is surrealism that is sometimescomical and sometimes perverse: a dog eagerly bathing its female owner's mouthand face with tongue licks, a guy in a Superman costume trying to hitch a ride,a rough-trade guy with a tattoo on his blowing someone a kiss. The third isprostitution, with an emphasis on money changing hands: transvestite hookersgive ominous leers to passers-by, a prostitute negotiating with a guy in a carand, most ominously, two adults with unseen faces exchanging money as aconfused kid between the two looks on. Is he being sold to the one of them?
Halfway through the trailer, the percussion abruptlyshifts to an intense, jazzy drum solo that takes an already frantic pace to greaterheights. The mixture of elements shifts,as well. There's only onesurreal/humorous moment - an apparent dead man popping up with a grin in hiscasket - as the rest of the images shift to violent conflict in two formats.The first of these is the cops closing in on the bad guys with guns drawn,tackling the occasional foe and heading into danger as bullets fly. The otherviolent format at play is Hauser unleashing fury on everything and everyone inhis path. He's whipping people with coathangers, throwing them into gutters andwrecking cars.
Just when your brain's about to explode, Wings jumps outa window and the trailer finally slam-cuts to its end titles. The narratoraffects a Joe Friday cadence as he says "TheHollywood vice squad. The real story. The true story. Coming soon from AvcoEmbassy Pictures." You feel like you're finally allowed to breatheagain as the titles fade out.
In short, the Vice Squad trailer is a brutal and sharply-paced gem. You might not know a thing about the story or characters when it ends but you know exactly the kind of movie you're going to get: a fistful of gritty action delivered in the sleaziest of urban settings, thoroughly laced with all the illicit thrills and accompanying dangers suggested by its gutter-level vision of Hollywood. Exploitation film promotion is supposed to sell the sizzle rather than the steak - and this trailer sizzles like no other.