C Thomas Howell and Nicholas Turturro have their pimp attitude exactly right as killer cousins Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, who collectively became known as "the Hillside Strangler" for the series of murders that they committed in Hollywood during the late 1970s. However, little else in director Chuck Parello's depressingly crude case history makes this tedious trawl through the sleazy underbelly of Tinseltown worthwhile. Deliberately echoing the misogynistic machismo of old school grindhouse exploitation without adding anything new or ironic in the process, Parello was on better form with the more artfully horrifying Ed Gein. The murders are depicted clinically with naked flesh and agony on full display and the viewer must decide if this grotesque tale is a fair factual representation or just tasteless censor baiting.

Kenneth Bianchi is a security guard whose attempts to become a police officer are repeatedly thwarted. He moves to California to live with his cousin Angelo and dates a string of women, becoming increasingly preoccupied with sex. Eventually the cousins decide to start an escort agency. After violently killing a prostitute they thought had betrayed them, Kenneth and Angelo begin committing a series of crimes that become a media sensation.