Joe Bob's Halloween Hoedown - Angel (1984)

 I have been on r/Shudder on Reddit and concur with the general consensus for the newest marathon from Joe Bob Briggs and Darcy that Angel (1984) is a good movie, just not really in the spirit of the season. I think the next film, Terror Train (1980), which I watched with my daughter not too long ago, is much better. That said, revisiting "Angel" wasn't a bad experience. The music score by Craig Safan is especially good, and Rory Calhoun as the Hollywood Boulevard Wild West "movie cowboy" showing "spinning gun" tricks to the kids (the adults braving the streets with them, I'm sure, had to be extra careful) steals every scene he's in...and that is not easy when you have Dick Shawn as trans pal to Donna Wilkes' dominating the screen with all that personality. Shawn is just so much fun, and when he's opposite Susan Tyrell, which he lovingly argues with pretty much non-stop, it is magic. Well, those two yelling at each other, you wouldn't think it would be such a blast. But, hell, it is Dick Shawn and Susan Tyrell...whoever put those two together, I would like to buy you a sandwich. Tyrell has these eyebrow makeup streaks and spiked hair, this aggressive talk, so when you throw her in a room with the talky and overpowering Shawn, it is a recipe for fireworks. Wilkes is so cute and petite, seeing her as a minor bedding old, portly sloths is a horrifying thought. So the film never shows that, though Wilkes (who was an adult, thank goodness, at the time) walks in some heels and mini-skirts. The scene at the end when Wilkes is packing heat while pursuing Diehl, with bald head, disguised as a Hari Krishna, that is the good shit. Her face, too, dead serious and firing that gun as crowds behind her (and some even in front of her!) scatter, Wilkes means business and Diehl is scared shitless. Diehl, the serial killer of prostitutes working the Hollywood Boulevard, has obvious mommy issues and has this egg-juice sucking scene that is quite unsettling...he sucks the yolk for quite a period of time from the shell. 

Safan really has the right music for the tough scenes involving an emotional Angel discovered as living on her own by a sympathetic cop, played by Cliff Gorman. Gorman has this ache about him I appreciated because a lot of these films, such as "Vice Squad", don't often feature decent cop with an actual caring heart, kvetching at the unfortunate situation for a teenager, working the streets in order to sustain her home, waiting for a father that will never return. The film really emphasizes Angel's plight, as far as, the absence of a parental presence and the efforts to conceal living alone. The music punches that home time and again. Jocks wanting to fuck her, cops trying to arrest her, a guidance counselor at school wanting more information about her; Angel's story, with Safan's music, puts a lot of emotional wallop behind the more salacious moments. You get naked cheerleaders in the showers and locker rooms, streetwalkers out and about on the boulevard, the usual catcalling men requesting a screw loudly for all to hear, and Diehl leaving behind bloody hooker corpses. I will say, all the music accompanying all the night shots on the boulevard, early 80s and the myriad of personalities populating the streets, adds a lot of extra to the film. 3.5/5