Massage Parlor Murders (Chester Fox & Alex Stevens, 1976) ****1/2

I suppose the best way to describe this movie, would be as some sort of Grindhouse version of ‘The French Connection’. Not only is there a strong emphasis on the whole cop business and do we get treated to an extended car chase, both movies share the same kind of loose script structure. In typical seventies fashion, instead of a tightly written scenario based on cause and effect, ‘Massage Parlor Murders’ offers almost random vignettes creating a wonderfully sprawling epic that clocks in at just under 80 minutes. In doing so, it has created a wonderful time capsule, which captures that seventies sensibility so well, with those instantly recognizable colors, the great music (which seems a cross between early Funkadelic and the Miles Davis of the period) and of course that truly awful and ubiquitous wallpaper. With a title like ‘Massage Parlor Murders!’ you’d probably expect a straight horror movie, but probably the exclamation mark (which is there on the title card) should give you a clue this is going to be something entirely else. So besides the wonderful sleaziness of it all, the movie is played more for comedy than horror, with some truly hilarious moments though there are some gore sequences as well. In the end, what’s most beautiful about this picture is its total refusal to be categorized and its willingness to go anywhere it pleases; what it may lack in coherence, it more than makes up for with poetic logic.

For only their second blu-ray release, Vinegar Syndrome couldn’t have picked a better title than ‘Massage Parlor Murders’. They not only rescued this gem from obscurity, somehow they’ve managed to make it look like a million bucks too. When I saw the trailer for this release, I was very much surprised at how good it looked, and fortunately this doesn’t limit itself to just the trailer. Sure, there is the occasional odd frame and the soundtrack isn’t always pitch-perfect, but this is one scrumptious looking blu-ray. Vinegar Syndrome is a new player in town (their Expectations/Confessions double bill is already one of my favorite releases of the year) and everyone who considers himself a exploitation genre nut owes it to himself to check out their releases and this one is a good a place to start as any.