Matt Rossi (Tom Berenger) used to be a pretty good boxer, but when he accidentally killed a guy in the ring, he quit the sport and started a talent agency with his friend Nicky Parzeno (Jack Scalia). Their talent is strippers. When some maniac starts slicing their girls up with a knife, something must be done about it.

Being that their business is only quasi-legal and they are loosely connected to the mafia, they can’t exactly rely on the cops. Especially not Detective Al Wheeler (Billy Dee Williams), who used to be in vice but has been promoted to homicide. He’s got it out for Matt.

Matt used to have a thing going with their most popular dancer, Loretta (Melanie Griffith), and he’s starting to wish he hadn’t broken it off with her. But these days she’s with another dancer, Leila (Rae Dawn Chong). The film is surprisingly nonchalant about her bisexuality for a film from the mid-1980s.

Unsurprisingly, it was directed by Abel Ferrara, the poet laureate of sleaze. He is one of the few directors to thread the fine line between the grindhouse and the arthouse. He made exploitation films with the talent of an auteur.

This film is not all that concerned with the killer. We get a few scenes with him practicing martial arts in his large flat, where he’s also writing some kind of manifesto. But we never find out who he is or why he’s killing. He doesn’t even get a name in the credits.

The kills are mostly tame. Most of the girls he doesn’t even kill; he just slices them with a knife. Apparently, there is an alternate cut that gets a little more gruesome, causing 20th Century Fox to drop the film, selling it to Aquarius Releasing. What it lacks in gore it more than makes up for in nudity. The film spends a lot of time watching the dancers, especially Loretta in various states of undress.

But it also takes time for various subplots. Matt and Nicky essentially supply girls for the various clubs around town. One club owner, Mike (Michael V. Gazzo) is constantly giving them trouble. In an early scene, he owes them some money, and he begs the boys not to hurt him, but to give him just a few more days. After several girls get attacked, and most of the remaining ones don’t want to work, Mike is constantly complaining that he’s getting less-than-super-attractive girls.

But mostly, this is a character study of Matt. He regularly flashes back to that fight where he killed the guy. In his new business, he certainly acts tough. The threat of violence keeps guys like Mike paying up every week, but he doesn’t really have the stomach for it anymore. But as more of his girls get cut up, and as the threat comes to Loretta, he becomes more willing to fall into old patterns.

His relationship with Loretta is complicated. His relationship with Nicky and the cops is complicated. He’s a complicated guy. This is an interesting film. It really does straddle that line between exploitation and something more. It is a film that could both play at a late night drive in theater and is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.