(United States/1984)
Reviewed By-Kit Gavin Directed by Danny Steinmann Starring Linda Blair, Lisa Freeman, Robert Dryer, Linnea Quigley and John Vernon Source: Video Entertainment [Netherlands] DVD PAL Region 0
Brenda [Blair] and her all girl gang, the Satins, are out on the prowl, exploring the streets and window shopping in the early evening. Enter Jake [Dryer] and his gang, the scars, riding round for looking for kicks, and keen on collecting drug money from various individuals. Whilst tearing round, they almost run over Brenda’s pretty younger sister [Quigley], a deaf mute. Shortly afterwards, the girl gang happen upon the gang’s car whilst they are trying to get their money, and terrorise various high school types who are in their debt, the Satins decide go joyriding in the Jake’s convertible. The gang spot the girls and give chase, by foot, down the city streets. Losing the gang, the girls dump the car in another side alley, and Brenda and her pack of buddies fill the car with garbage from nearby trash cans, having lost their pursuers.
Understandably pissed at this behaviour Jake and the other gang members are determined to get their revenge of a more extreme nature. A few days later, visiting Vinnie at his high school, they spot Heather on her way to the gymnasium. Heather presents her sister with a silver necklace. Whilst Brenda is getting changed, her best friend Francine [Freeman] discusses her wedding plans (and her pregnancy) with Brenda, before the latter is confronted by Cindy, a cheerleader who accuses Brenda of making eyes at her boyfriend Wes. Brenda dismisses Cindy’s allegations with dismay and the two girls get into a catfight in the shower room. Meanwhile, whilst Cindy and Brenda are fighting, Jake and his gang are gang raping Heather, having dragged her from the gymnasium to girls lavatory. The gym mistress stops the fight between Brenda and Cindy and both are dragged up in front of Principal Underwood [Vernon]. Afterwards the girls realise Heather is missing and go in search of her before being she is discovered, close to death, by Maria.
Heather ends up in hospital [the unoriginally called "Doctor’s Hospital] in a catatonic state. Brenda vows vengeance on her sister’s attackers, with her widowed mother being unsure what to do. In a distressed state, Brenda and her gang go to their usual haunt, a rock club called the MX. Later that evening the Scars turn up and try to force themselves on to Francine. This behaviour leads to a full fight and riot in the club (the band play on regardless). Whilst fleeing Francine slashes Jakes face with his own switchblade, making Jake keen for vengeance. Slightly later, Francine picks up her wedding dress and is making her way to the girls meeting ground when she is spotted by Jake and gang, who give her chase. The gang threaten her and Jake, accidentally (??) throws her to her death from an overpass. Red and Fargo laugh it off, chucking her wedding dress over the corpse.
However Vinnie, already filled with remorse for his participation in having raped Heather, is now filled with remorse and flees. He makes his way to the hospital to blurt out an apology to his victim, saying that the act was not all his doing. By chance, Brenda too is visiting the hospital and overhears Vince ‘fessing up to the deed. Brenda roughs Vinnie up and later on pays him a visit at home determined to discover who else was responsible for events. Beforehand she has had a think in the bath, and goes to the Supply Sergeant and stocks up on a crossbow, arrows and beartraps. And off course a tape recorder to record her laughter on, in what seems like an over convoluted trap.
Jake heads off to kill Vince for his cowardly behaviour earlier on, or his disgust at the gang having committed murder, or even less likely that Jake has heard that he has ratted on them. Whilst he is off, he finds Vince seeking money in order to flee town and runs him down. Whilst all this is taking place Brenda lures Fargo and Red into an trap elaborate trap and dispatches of them with a cross bow bolt through the neck and with the beartraps. Before Jake arrives, Brenda trusses them up for Jake to see.
However Brenda has the ultimate vengeance of all for Jake. Her initial plan of stringing Jake up, after having fired two cross bow bolts through each of his kneecaps (shot with staggering accuracy), and cutting his throat and letting him bleed to death, fails. So in a final confrontation by the two, Brenda covers Jake in flammable paint and sets light to him, making him a human torch, just as the cops arrive. However, somehow, which is never made clear, Brenda is acquitted for her crimes (three counts of murder) as the police supposedly have seen her covered in paint and looking smugly satisfied. The film ends with Brenda and her buddies (and the now recovered Heather too) at Francine’s grave, putting bouquets of flowers there, commending Brenda on her plan of vengeance.
Linda Blair, aged 25 when she made this film, is clearly too old to be playing a 17-18 year old convincingly. The same actually goes for all the rest of the gang, the "Satins" whom she hangs out with as well. There is a moment which Leonard Maltin described as "hilariously arty bath tub scene" and it is just that. The naked (and rather heavy) Blair lies in the bath, languidly holding a cigarette, staring intensely into space. She lies there as the camera gradually moves in closer and closer to her somewhat intense expression for just shy of a minute, whilst Blair doesn’t flinch a muscle in one of the most non-erotic displays of nudity. However Blair comes out with some cracking one liners, most often unintentionally funny – "You stuck up cunt! I wouldn’t fuck him if he had the last dick on Earth". You can see that Blair is trying to act in this, but she really is pretty bad. But, don’t get me wrong, an entertaining "bad" not wooden and uninspiring by a long shot. She does try to inject her character with a gutsy edge, a girl from the wrong side of the tracks determined to do what she feels in right.
Also Blair’s shape and build seems to change as the film progresses. She starts off quite puppy fatty, ok, ok plump, dressed in her tight blue top at the start with nipples jutting out, and by the end she actually looks quite svelte in her skin tight black zip up neoprene dominatrix style outfit. Indeed, this outfit seems to have been quite a hit as it appears on most of the marketing materials for the film, including the UK video sleeve which enlarged Blair’s bust size to melon like proportions. Blair’s acting skills however had diminished from her days in The Exorcist and the highly regarded Sarah T, indeed Blair’s personal life seemed troubled, having apparently been pursued by a stalker, drug troubles, and a court sentencing her to three years probation for her associations with drug dealers. Blair seems to have survived all this and appears, still attractive, fresh faced and bubbly at fan conventions, signing memorabilia for fans and turning up in the occasional movie role.
There is a minor subplot involving Blair’s antics at high school, and the rivalry between her and the cheerleader Cindy, who thinks that Brenda has her sights on her rather goofy and gormless boyfriend, Wes, who amazingly both Cindy and her friend Valerie elevate to studmuffin status. However Wes seems more interested in Brenda than his airhead blonde girlfriend and this leads to two catfights between Brenda and Cindy, the first in the showers and later in a science lab, where Brenda tears off Cindy’s sleeveless little top after Cindy makes a cutting comment about Brenda’s sister being retarded. Thrown into this action are two of the three scenes which the late John Vernon turns in an appearance in as the Principal of the school in a role which is little more than a glorified cameo appearance. Most of the high school scenes are padding out for the plot, but add to the amusing trashiness of the film. A dryly amusing aside has the biology teacher entering in on the students dancing on the desks, including one with a skeleton, before discovering the students have defaced his anatomy charts with the somewhat predictable illustration of an enormous penis. Another scene has the English teacher discussing "giving head" in the context of poetry class, and afterwards tells Brenda how upset and worried she is following on from her sister having been attacked.
Blair’s all-girl gang are played by mostly small part actresses who had appeared mostly in small exploitation flicks in themed 80’s but who’s careers would never achieve the dizzying heights of the one which Linda Blair’s had already plummeted to by the time she made this movie. Her best friend is Francine, played by Lisa Freeman who had appeared as one of Jason’s victims [a nurse] in Friday the 13th Part IV. Francine’s quite a sympathetic character, pregnant and already trying on her wedding dress, ends up being thrown off a bridge. Already sparked into a fir of rage when Brenda discovers that Jake and his gang were responsible for her sister’s condition, it is when Vinnie blurts out that the gang killed Francine that Brenda goes ape-shit and is more determined than ever to make the gang suffer for their actions. Other gang members include Marcia Karr who also appeared with Blair [and Vernon] in Chained Heat. Luisa Leschin appears as giggly Maria, and Ina Rupino as Stella. With the exception of Francine, these girls are pretty much one dimensional cardboard characters but each of them gives their mostly thankless roles as much as they can.
Blair’s sister, Heather, is not really a member of the gang but was played by one of the B-movie scream queens of the 1980’s Linnea Quigley. Her performance here isn’t too bad, although it’s undemanding, she has to go through a nasty rape sequence (which presumably was shot in two versions – as flashbacks show a bloodier version) – but she is quite sweet, endearing and vulnerable as an innocent victim of violence.
The all-male gang of punks, the Scars, who will be killed off by "avenging angel" Blair are headed by a drug pusher psychotic Jake, in a quite chilling performance being turned in by Robert Dryer. The other gang members are two drop outs called a punk-type in mascara called Red [one hit wonder Scott Mayer], and the brawny Fargo [Sal Landi] together with high school kid Vinnie [Johnny Venocur], who happens to be in a number of Blair’s classes at the same high school. Red and Fargo’s roles are mostly one dimensional nasty pieces of work, however Vinnie seems to be the only one to feel any sort of remorse, being the weakest member of the gang. After the gang bring about the accidental death of Francine, and then laugh and shrug it off, he can take no more and flees.
Director Steinmann’s career as a director was as unexceptional as his direction skills. His career apparently started in the early Seventies with his direction of a porno film, called High Rise, starring Harry Reems and Jamie Gillis. Following on he worked in a very sporadic career over the next decade before being hired to direct Savage Streets. The film however, according to Variety reports, had a troubled shooting history and at one point had to cease shooting owing to funds running out. Indeed this gap in shooting is evidenced by the on-off presence of Debra Blee as Rachel, who was unavailable when shooting resumed when more funds were available. Following on from Savage Streets, he directed the firth entry in the Friday 13th franchise. Following on from Friday the 15th Part V: A New Beginning, Steinmann announced to Fangoria Magazine that he was planning on directing a pseudo-sequel to The Last House in the Left entitled Krug’s Island, again starring David Hess. However this project never seems to have been realized in any shape or form, and Steinmann vanished into obscurity.
Without any doubt, Savage Streets, IS one of the definitive 1980’s exploitation movies to come out of the US in that era. The film combines so many genres from being good girl goes vigilante, gang war, rape-revenge and bitch fights. The film even has echoes of the women in prison genre ("I’m never gonna get out of this place" bemoans Blair at one point) with the girls trapped in their own miserable "prison" of high school and trashy lifestyles in an unfriendly mean city. There are occasional spots of nudity, even a gratuitous shower sequence in the high school which opens with a topheavy co-ed slowly soaping herself down before the camera pans across to the girls’ locker room where the girls are changing after Phys Ed.
Streetwise and tough Blair surrounds herself with a politically correct gang of airhead loud mouthed friends; viz. two Latinas (Francine and Maria, another white girl Stevie (and occasional appearance by another Rachel) and a token black girl called Stella. However that is where the political correctness stops, for Savage Streets could be described as most anything but politically correct. Blair herself plays pure white trash, a tough street chick, but with a soft center and good heart who loves her friends and family and will avenge any wrongs done to this essential core to her existence.
Despite attempts at gritty subject matter, the film is a blatant tasteless exercise in exploitation but with such camp humor and unintentionally funny lines and performance, the jaded viewer of these spectacle cannot help but find themselves laughing for the most part, with the exception of a particularly harrowing and nasty gang rape sequence involving the gang of the "Scars" and Blair’s disabled younger (although Quigley is actually older than Blair) sister, Heather. Also Savage Streets takes itself far too seriously by half but anyone who watches this will no doubt be watching it with a strong sense of irony in the proceedings..
There are moments of sheer and staggering incredulity throughout the plot. One instance is a tender moment of character building, showing the love and bond between Brenda and Heather, when Heather presents her sister with a heart shaped locket in the school gymnasium. Blair talks to her deaf and dumb sister with only a few throwaway gestures of sign language. Assuming that Heather has been deaf and dumb since birth, surely Brenda would be able to communicate with her sister? Also the remorse filled Vince later visits Heather in hospital confessing and to his crimes, surely this is pointless as Heather can neither hear nor reply to him. Of course, Vince’s visit to Heather is the denouement which Brenda overhears in order to avenge her sister’s rape and her friends murder at the hands of the thugs. There is a moment where Brenda’s buddies at the start of the film stare through the windows of a shop, staring at crossbows and beartraps (subtle foreshadowing, I think not!!!), before heading off for a live sex show and ogling at copies of Playgirl. The thing all high school chicks on school nights do after all.
The DVD under review is truly atrocious. The film seems to have been sourced, both audio and video, from an old washed out and a panned and scanned print of the film, taken from a Dutch VHS complete with burnt in subtitles. The picture is ugly with unnatural colors and badly framed throughout. Skin tones are wrong, blacks are murky and everything in between is nothing better than unexceptional. There is also damage on the tape which the film has been taken from and nothing has been done to rectify it. In fact it doesn’t look like the film was taken from an original tape but a ropey old copy (!). Audio too is unexceptional and pretty faint for the most part, with only the original sound track, and the tracks played by the band, being set at a reasonable volume. There are no extras at all, and the film has been divided into only four chapters (!!). Even the menu is appalling, and the whole DVD reeks of being a bootleg.
In the UK, the film had an extremely troubled release history. It was originally submitted to the British Board of Film Classification, in the heat of the video nasty scandal and was rejected outright by the body despite a number of cuts being made, mostly owing to the offensive rape scene and scenes of crossbows, and the theme of vigilante justice, the film having been originally greeted with same fate upon submission for a theatrical release. It was re-submitted with just under eleven and a half minutes of cuts having been made, yet the BBFC deemed this print still unsuitable and demanded a further minute and four seconds. So Medusa, in order to pad out the heavily pruned film re-edited the movie with an earlier flash-forward scene being placed at the beginning to add a few minutes. Most of the footage with the crossbow, the rape in it’s entirety (including later flashback) and numerous snippets of dialog, mostly of a sexual nature were excised, even in the final moments where Brenda is told she "made things right" fell fowl of the Censor. Some of the scenes and moments which fell fowl of the scissor happy BBFC seem unjustified and erring on puritanical rather than protection, a joke when the film is readily available uncut around the world and has been screened on US cable channels uncut.
At one point in the film when Brenda is asked who much she would enjoy the prospect of getting high and then laid by Jake, she responds to the prospect as being as enjoyable as "drowning in a pool of vomit". Some viewers of the film may actually feel they would to engage in this act than to have sat down and watched this spectacle as the movie is, well, a largely tasteless, sleazy camp exercise. But, putting those somewhat prudish reservations aside, this is such an enjoyable slice of 1980’s trashy cheese, it is a shame to dismiss it. With other culty exploitation US movies from the Eighties, such as The Angel Collection, being released by companies such as Anchor Bay Entertainment, someone should revisit Savage Streets and the other Blair exploitation pic Chained Heat, hopefully releasing them in cleaned up prints in their OAR, with trailers, maybe even an audio commentary by Blair and possibly director Steinmann. Despite my misgivings about the disc and it’s quality, the film is such a guilty pleasure and a journey back into Eighties cheapo exploitation sleaze. If the film was given better treatment (ie. A new transfer and hopefully some extras) than the no-effort made on this DVD release under review and was priced reasonably, I definitely would consider picking it up once again.
Story: 2.5 - 3 BITCH SLAPS Audio: 2 BITCH SLAPS Video: 1.5 BITCH SLAPS Extras: 0 BITCH SLAPS Overall: 2 BITCH SLAPS To purchase this DVD visit X-Ploited Cinema
-or-
