This is not Sunset Strip, the 1992 Flashdance ripoff.

Nor is it 1993’s Girls of the Sunset Strip, which has Monique Parent in it.

It is also not Richard Pryor: Live On the Sunset Strip, Glitter Goddess of the Sunset Strip, Riot On Sunset Strup, Mayor of the Sunset Strip or Shakedown On the Sunset Strip.

No, this is the 1985 Sunset Strip, directed and written by William Webb (Party Line, The Banker). His movies make Los Angeles feel like a neon soaked nightmare, a place that when I finally got to the Sunset Strip and saw it from high above, I thought, “Right now, there’s a serial killer or a gang dance fighting and I am missing it to be in this lame club.”

Photographer Mark Jefferson (Tom Eplin) decides to help his friend Roger (John Mayall, yes, the Bluesbreakers John Mayall, I’m as surprised as you) protect his bar from organized crime quite unlike but also totally like Road House. Or more like Club Life, but both of those movies came after this even if retroactively this feels like a ripoff.

By the mysteries of movie fate, Mark’s ex Carol (Cheri Cameron Newell) is singing at the club and they fall back in bed within minutes. Then the mob starts running guns through the club and people start getting killed left and right, including the horny landlady who lets Jeff pay via sex years before Kingpin. This also has electrocution torture a few years before Lethal Weapon and I doubt anyone saw this and stole these scenes, but it is prescient, so you have to give it some credit.

Moran (Danny Williams) and his gang kill Roger, frame Mark and then the cops are LA cops, so this goes about as well as you’d expect. Except it looks so much better than it has any reason to. Beyond the endless telephone scenes and chases, this has a neon look that is intoxicating and remembers it’s a 1985 direct-to-video store effort and loads things up with violence and rampant nudity. Also: Shabba Doo cameo!

You can watch this on Tubi.