"Las Vegas Serial Killer" is the cinematic equivalent of elevator music. You barely notice its presence, but at the same time it's intensely irritating. This is supposed to be a sequel to 1979's "The Hollywood Strangler Meets The Skid Row Slasher", but somehow it's even more boring than that one. The thing is, at least the original had two serial killers going for it. You had a scene where the strangler strangled a girl, then one where the slasher stabs a hobo: rinse and repeat until you finally have eighty minutes. Unfortunately the skid row slasher isn't in this one, she's replaced by two muggers who stand on a street corner and make sexist comments for the entire movie. Why are we even following these guys, what do they have to do with the plot (so to speak)? Once you find out, you'll feel like burning down a building.
Even though Ray Dennis Steckler made some...interesting features in the 1960s, by 1986 he was clearly too lazy to make something even vaguely watchable. Bizarrely though, his lazyness often kicks in when there's not even any work at hand. For instance, he comes up with this lame reason why the Hollywood strangler is released from prison: apparently the bodies of his victims were never found, even though he just threw them in dumpsters. That makes no sense, but here's the thing: the strangler wasn't even caught in the first one! Why not just pretend he's been killing more people for the last six years? The psyche of Ray Dennis Steckler is very mysterious.
The most fascinating thing about Steckler's career is that his development somehow goes backwards, while cinema as a whole was taking huge steps forwards. His first few movies seem like actual movies, low-budget but everything you need is there. Then he started shooting without sound, but still dubbed in dialogues and sound effects rather competently. And here, in one of the final films of his career, we barely hear dialogue and if someone does talk we usually get a shot of his back or something. This is 1986 we're talking about, was it really that difficult or expensive to shoot with sound by then? Even though Steckler's movies didn't sell too poorly, it always seemed like he had even less money for the next feature.
If you're interested in 75 minutes of ladies who really suck at pretending they're getting strangled, interspersed with muggers doing nothing and unrelated footage of local events (we see a rodeo, an airplane show AND a parade) that are just there to pad out the running time, this is certainly the movie for you. How's that for an endorsement?
