The Hillside Strangler is the true life story of cousins Kenneth Bianchi (C. Thomas Howell) and Angelo Buono, but centers mainly on Bianchi (hence, the title being singular instead of “Stranglers”).

After failing at nearly everything Kenneth Bianchi attempts, his mother suggest a change of scenery for a possible change of luck. He ends up staying at his cousins Angelo Buono’s in L.A. for a time as the two hang out together and scheme for ways to make money. The two cousins decide to go into the escort business where Bianchi lays a con on a vacationing girl, telling her he’s a talent scout for a modeling agency. She falls for it and soon becomes ensnared under the threat of violence if she attempts to leave. The escort business expands as they bring in a second girl and obtain a client list from a competing escort service supplied by a hooker. The competing pimps catch wind of this and go after the cousins, breaking in to their house and robbing them of guns and money. Enraged and wanting revenge the two cousins, rather than go after the pimps, focus their anger on the hooker who sold them the client list. They pick her up and end up strangling her in the backseat of their car. This first kill starts the whole ball rolling as the two cousins now start their troll for victims.

Gimp wise there are quite a few segments of interest. The first is a fairly long segment as the cousins pick up a hooker under the guise of being Vice-Squad. She is handcuffed and taken back to Buono house. There she has wadding stuffed in her mouth and tape-gagged & blindfolded. She is later brought into the living room after an implied double rape where she gets suffocated with a plastic bag.

Next up is a nurse who gets stopped, this time under the guise that her car matched the description of a robbery suspect. She is cuffed and ends up spread on a bed back at Buono’s place. She is only shown from the waist up in a nice topless segment.

Up next are a few short snippets as recollections of another victim are recalled. She is nude, tape gagged & blindfolded, and tortured with injections into her neck, followed by a death by gassing segment as a plastic bag is held over her head with a gas line running into it.

There is also another hooker who gets handcuffed and taken into an apartment. The segment then fast-forwards to her dumped body after the cousins are nearly discovered.

The finale Gimp segment has a waitress who comes over to Buono’s house. She’s a little flirtatious as she dances with Buono. Bianchi shows up a little later and Buono tells her to dance with his cousin as he’s a “Disco Machine”. Buono comes back and whips a cord around her throat, dragging her into the house. This finishes the Gimpage as she is shown in a brief hog-tie snippet.

As entertainment OK I guess. Not bad… not good. Grade C