Intrigue

High-schooler Molly secretly earns her living as Angel, a street prostitute whose only family and friends are the ones she works with on the streets. She must survive against a serial killer who is targeting people of her profession.

Molly, 15, is the star student of her high-school class, and nobody suspects that she earns money at night as prostitute "Angel" on Sunset Boulevard. The well-organized separation of her two lives is shattered when two of her friends are slain by a necrophile serial killer. She's the only eyewitness and becomes a target herself. Investigator Detective Andrews helps her to not only survive but also to query why she keeps humiliating herself and get her to stop.—Tom Zoerner <Tom.Zoerner@informatik.uni-erlangen.de>

The movie opens with 15 year-old honor student Molly Stewart (Donna Wilkes) attending her private prep school in the Los Angeles area. When she gets home, however, with some makeup work and a change in wardrobe she becomes Angel: the mini-skirted, high-heeled street prostitute working Hollywood Blvd. As she weaves her way through the evening avoiding vice-cops and interacting with potential customers, we meet the members of her street family: the aging movie cowboy Kit Carson (Rory Calhoun), street performer Yoyo Charlie (Steven M. Porter) transvestite Mae (Dick Shawn) and fellow hookers Crystal (Donna McDaniel) and Lana (Graem McGavin).

Despite the carnival-like atmosphere of the Hollywood streets after dark, all is not well as hookers are being killed by a psycho-necrophiliac (John Diehl) that likes to dismember the girl's bodies when he is done. Police Lt. Andrews (Cliff Gorman) has been assigned to the case, but has no leads. Tragedy strikes Angel's group of friends when Crystal, who has a budding romantic relationship going with Yoyo Charlie, picks up the killer and winds up a victim.

The next day at school the arrogant jock Ric Sawyer (David Underwood) makes a play for Molly which she pointedly rejects. She then goes to see teacher Patricia Allen (Elaine Giftos) who is concerned about Molly's lack of extra-curricular activities. Molly explains that her mother has been paralyzed by a stroke and she needs to go home immediately after school every day to take care of her.

The next evening a crowd, including Angel, gathers outside the motel room where Crystal's body was found. Lt. Andrews advises the girls to work in pairs. Later that evening Angel is working with partner Lana when they see a potential client across the street. Lana takes him to a motel room she and Angel share. A couple hours later when Angel shows up at the room with a client of her own, she finds the naked, bloody body of Lana in the shower where the killer left it.

This makes Angel the only person who can identify the killer. Based on a description she gives the police, a sketch is made and the killer is brought in for a lineup. Angel recognizes him, but he escapes by grabbing an officer's gun and shooting his way out of the police station.

Andews takes Molly/Angel home and demands to speak with her parents, then finds out the truth: Molly's father left her mother nine years ago and her mom abandoned Molly three years ago. Molly keeps up the fiction of her mother being around so that she will not be sent to a foster home. She believes someday her father will return for her and wants to be waiting for him at their old apartment, so since the age of 12 she has paid the rent by prostitution.

Despite Andrews' warnings to stay off the street, Angel/Molly purchases a small pistol and goes back to work. That night schoolmate Ric Sawyer and pals see her on a street corner and force her into their car, but Molly uses the gun to escape. However, her secret is out now and her whole school knows she spends her evenings as a Hollywood hooker.

The next day, Mae is playing cards with Molly's ill-tempered landlord, Solly (Susan Tyrrell), when teacher Allen, who has heard the stories circulating around the school, comes by insisting on seeing Molly's mother. Mae sneaks up to Molly's apartment to try and pretend he is Molly's mother, but Allen sees through this subterfuge. Mae is still at Molly's apartment a few minutes later when the killer, trying to murder Molly, shows up. He and Mae fight till Mae is stabbed. After the killer flees, Mae is still alive long enough where he dies in Solly's arms.

Andrews and Molly return to her apartment to find Mae dead. While Andrews is on the phone to call for backup, Molly goes to Solly's room and gets her gun (a huge, long-barreled .44 magnum) and heads out on the streets to avenge Mae. Andrews goes looking for her and enlists Kit Carson to help in the search. The killer, dressed up as a Hara Krishna, sneaks up behind Molly with a knife, but a warning from Yoyo Charlie saves her and starts a chase though the streets with Molly using the huge gun to blast away at the killer while Andrews ties to catch up with them both. In a dead-end alley the killer jumps Molly and gets her gun and is about to turn it on both her and Andrews when Carson - having put real bullets into his cowboy/show guns - arrives just in the nick of time to fill the killer full of lead. Molly, Andrews and a wounded Carson walk off together as the scene fades to black.