Man, Angel is pretty much everything I want in a movie. It's filled with a cast of people I adore as well as presenting an alternative universe Los Angeles that is at once filled with scum and yet presents the nicest group of prostitutes that you'll ever meet.

Foremost amongst them is Molly Stewart, who is an honor student by day and a streetwalker at night. She's played by Donna Wilkes, who somehow shows up in so many of my favorite bad movies. There she is as a child in Jaws 2. Here she is in the slashers Schizoid - in love with her father Klaus Kinski - as well as Blood Song, being menaced by Frankie Avalon, and alongside Linda Blair in Grotesque. She took this role so seriously that she did plenty of research, saying "I actually walked on the streets with these girls and talked with them and I also talked to the people with the group called Children of the Night and to the Hollywood Police Department, too." Of course, she was 22 and not 15, but isn't that true of every bad girl in every movie we've watched this week?

At night, Molly becomes Angel, sparks of her high heels clacking against the stars on the Walk of Fame and all down Hollywood Boulevard. Her street family - her father left nine years ago and her mother abandoned her three years ago, leaving her to pay her own way ever since - takes care of her. They're made up of senior citizen cowboy actor Kit Carson (Rory Calhoun, Motel Hell),street magician Yoyo Charlie, the trans Mae (Dick Shawn, Love at First Bite),Crystal, Lana and landlady Solly Mosler. She's played by Susan Tyrrell, who as always owns every single moment of screen time, looking in control while forever out of control.

The problem? Well, there's a serial killer who likes to sleep with his victims - after he kills them - to further sleaze this up and he's after our heroine. After finding Lana's body in the shower, Angel goes to the police and her description gets him arrested. The only problem? He shoots his way out and knows that she's the one who identified him.

Things get worse when classmates recognize her on the streets and Mae's impression of her mother doesn't convince one of her teachers. When Mae is stabbed by the serial killer, Angel grabs a gun and decides to take her life and the law into her own hands.

There are three sequels to this film, all with different actresses as Angel. You know us. We'll be talking about them all this week. They could have made forty of these films and I would have watched every single one of them. I mean, I watched six Vice Academy films.

Angel is a movie with a provocative poster. A high school student by day and a hooker by night, an underage one as well.

Molly Stewart (Donna Wilkes) is a 15 year old girl living alone in a Hollywood apartment. Her father went away and then her mother left her. To make ends meet she has been a prostitute at night since she was 12 years old. In the day she is an ordinary schoolgirl.

Her new family are other hookers, transvestite Mae (Dick Shawn) and the street performers in Hollywood Boulevard where she plys her trade in the evening.

Molly finds herself in danger when she witnesses suspect who might be a serial killer (John Diehl) who has been killing prostitutes.

Detective Andrews (Cliff Gorman) discovers more about Angel's life and tries to protect her as the serial killer targets her.

Director Robert Vincent O'Neil has come along a lot as a director since he mad Blood Mania in 1970. There are some nice shots of Los Angeles. However the story is a bit of a let down.

Molly's life is too sugar coated given the desperate circumstances she found herself in. The murders themselves lack the sleazy exploitation of a grindhouse type movie. Also there seems to be no urgency from the police, the killer escapes from police custody and guns down several cops.

I can understand why it has a cult following as it has a good cast and good production values.

There aren't many good movies about necrophilia. For one thing, the subject is pretty disgusting. After even a few hours it's hard to make yourself believe that this was once a living human being. And to play a necrophiliac is, let's say, a challenge. Molly Parker pulled it off brilliantly in "Kissed" but here, John Diehl as the sinewy killer doesn't. He kills young whores on the Sunset Strip, takes the corpses home, and has his way with them. Actually, when you get right down to it, making love to a corpse sounds a little dull, but let's not talk about my marriage. Diehl sucks the innards out of a tiny hole in a raw egg while staring at his mother's photo. I don't think the laws of physics allow you to do that, but no matter. He finally scrunches the whole egg, shell and all, into his obscenely sucking mouth.

The theme itself is a familiar one -- another serial killer. But there are a lot of colorful characters built into the plot around this monster. They all hang together on Sunset Boulevard and play hop scotch over the name plates in the sidewalk. They all seem to know one another.

There's Susan Tyrrell as the punk landscape painter manqué. She has a voice whose croak is as distinctive as her Goth garb. She was my supporting player in the art house classic, "Windmills of the Gods." She and Cliff Gorman, the detective, are the two most skilled performers in the cast. Then there is Steven Porter as Yoyo Charlie, shy, dressed like Emmet Kelly, who "adores Donna Wilkes from afar." And, as impressive as any of the other goofy buskers, is Rory Calhoun, ex cowboy star, never much of an actor but still going strong and very likable. He gives the role everything he's got, which doesn't include nuance. Dick Shawn is the catty cross-dresser with a heart of gold.

Donna Wilkes -- high school student and honorable daughter by day, hooker by night -- is neither here nor there as an actress. She doesn't drop the ball entirely, just juggles around uncertainly with it, but she's not up to the bizarre levels of her street buddies. And she's too old for her role, despite the pig tails, but then so is everyone else in her high school class. Peter Jason, as the first john we see her with, overacts to the point of embarrassment. It's not even funny.

I can believe that the hustlers and whores know one another but it gives a false impression of what Los Angeles (and Southern California) is like in general. Think of the bustles, shouts, curses, and intrusions on the fetid streets of New York. Now take all that energy away. Los Angeles is not a village. It's an intricate system of freeways with some houses and malls sprinkled between.

The direction is routine, appropriate to a television movie, filled with jumbo close ups for the small screen, as in a commercial for a brokerage firm. The photography and lighting are pretty good, though. They DO evoke the Strip in the 80s. Except, I suppose at the director's insistence, the men who stand in the police line up are illuminated by kick lights on the floor, turning them all into zombies. You wouldn't be able to identify your father. The story -- well, it winds up with Angel striding grimly along Hollywood Boulevard, stalking a fake Hare Krishna while holding a huge revolver in her hand.

It's not a very good film. Serial killers have been subject to pattern exhaustion by now but I have nothing against them. "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" nettles the brain and "Se7evn," despite the stupid transposition of a letter and number, and in spite of all that dark rain, is truly spooky.