Ms .45

Never visit New Rape City during Rapetober! Everyone knows this!!

I like the nature of the vengeance in this one, which seems an odd thing to write, but like Death Wish, there's no real hope of exacting personal revenge. There is just simply anger and a refusal to be a victim. Also, kudos to Abel Ferrara, who looked around, did some casting, then decided the only guy who could play the first rapist was himself.

Pretty damn awesome. Zoe Lund is terrific as Thana and the music is fantastic! The obvious comparisons of Repulsion meets Death Wish are bang on, with a good dash of Taxi Driver thrown in.

Early on the mute girl, that works at a high fashion women's clothing designer but tends to blend in with the background, kills a rapist by hitting him in the head...with an iron. So I guess it does say something about gender and sex roles after all. I could have sworn this was just a piece of exploitation cinema that merely wanted an excuse to show a hot girl (dressed as a nun) with a gun.

Best superhero film evar.

Decided to read the Wikipedia article on Zoë Lund, and oh boy, that was a trip.

Whatever films are supposed to have inspired this, it is really a structurally identical female version of TAXI DRIVER: traumatised (by rape rather than Vietnam), the protagonist withdraws from the world in a puritanical rejection of corruption, repressing her own sexuality and disgusted by sex-obsessed New York City, a personality schism that leads her to murder, culminating in a spectacular slow-motion massacre. But here the quality of filmmaking, and level of insight, are far inferior.

With a style that brings De Palma's sexy-and-bloody stuff to his decadent NY, Ferrara frames a story of a mute girl turned psycho in a fashion that demands some respect: there is a Polanski's Repulsion thing about this young woman that can't talk or complain; she exists only to hear, listen, receive. For men, she's just meat, like Repulsion's girl. Eventually, she will answer -- out loud, with a .45 firing bullets and fears towards these rude men.

Zoë Lund is absolutely gorgeous, but stupidly, her character is written to be a mute who can't whisper. She's often just blank. Rapes destroy her mental state and she sees all men as attackers. She uses her beauty to lure them. Most of the supporting cast was absolutely terrible. It's on-par with poor 1982 quality standards. I particularly disliked the asinine man in the park and obnoxious nosey neighbor scenes. Overall, it was watchable but not very satisfying.

I saw this film when I discovered the LP of the score for £8, brand new. The night after watching it, I took a tube straight to the shop where it was being sold, and bought it. That same day I went to the photo lab in my college and one of the guys noticed the LP in my bag. He told me he knew of it from a book he had stashed away about exploitation cinema, and then told me a story about how his uncle used to own some rights to Deep Throat until the local mafia forced him to give it up.

1 of the most surprising revenge flicks ever. Forces the viewer to not only assess its traumatized protagonist's actions, but the worthiness of her victims. By the time the thrilling slo-mo finale arrives Ms. 45 has morphed into a comic book-style avenging angel, but since Ferrara has never done anything as simple as let her be entirely heroic, or softened his portrait of the one-track minds of men & the less-than-flattering portrait they add up to, none of it ever feels predictable or routine.

Makes chauvinist creepiness seem almost like a pretty good reason for killing - until it becomes clear that the titular Ms .45 is absolutely deranged. It's a lot like Repulsion in that regard (which Ferrara quotes directly), only with a layer of 80s sleaze applied liberally to its psych-horror trappings. It's kinda silly at points (especially that party at the end), and the landlady is screechingly obnoxious, but it's admirably succinct and gritty.

Hard to place and a lot to sink in. Manages to take a rape revenge story and avoid a lot of the pitfalls of films like Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or I Spit On Your Grave - that is, Ms. 45 doesn't revel in the rape. Regardless, it's well-made horror. There's an absolutely brilliant twist on the famous Brooklyn Bridge shot from "Manhattan."

For starters, Ms 45. has the most annoying neighbour since Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's. A few classic inner-city NY locations interwoven between different grades of awful men being slain by a dolled up Mute. Has glimmers of style & its immersing moments but there's not much depth between.

The bastard child of Repulsion and Death Wish.

For an 'exploitation' film, this isn't so bad. It's predictably slight and campy and obviously not really saying much, but still rather enjoyable. The landlady, however, is the most obnoxious person ever and hearing her speak is more unpleasant than watching the rape scenes.

the saddest thing about this movie was the way it was like a crippled cowhand on a dude ranch for idiots: it kept on straddling the fence of enjoyability, only to fall off time after time, and drunkenly drag itself back on. I imagine that if there had been production values attached to this affair, and it weren't approached in post-production like some filthy 1970s porno, it might've been a good companion film to Taxi Driver. Not so, however.

Furious, sad and stylish, this early Ferrara-flick packs a punch. Dynamic, absorbing and raw.

Seriously insane. Imagine a cross between _Repulsion_ and _Death Wish_

that saxophone riff will be in my head for the remainder of 2021.

Well done nihilistic exploitation thriller

While the rape revenge genre is filled with some pretty awful stuff, Ferrara's take is a step above the rest. There is a sense of maturity to how the violence is shot and the refusal to sexualize it that is refreshing. Zoe Lund seems to be from another planet with her rage and her refusal to play the victim. Great stuff.

Viewed September 7, 2016. This movie goes all over the place, tonally and otherwise, but it's so headstrong that I ultimately had to like it - especially when it leads to images as delectable as Zoe Tamerlis dressed like a nun, her fire-red lips kissing a bullet. I love how her character actually becomes more sexualized the angrier she gets - it's a fantastic form of empowerment, in one of the more intensely feminist movies I've ever seen.

An interesting effort but even with all of the killing a lot of which seem unwarranted the film just isn't that interesting.

As a big fan of vigilante films, I really wanted to like this. I can appreciate that Ferrara was trying to mix exploitation with art film, but the end result is just too slow moving and doesn't contain enough depth to be taken seriously. It feels like a cheaper riff on e.g. Polanski's Repulsion. There are some nice images towards the end, as well as location shooting around N.Y but not enough to lift the whole.

Ferrara must not have liked the reactions he was getting while trying to pick up chicks in the street.

Decent revenge flick that's hardly too serious about itself. Zoe Lund does a good job as the mute femme killer. It's fun and all, but it could've been better if the sexual politics were a little more thought-out rather than flung together, and for 80-some minutes it still feels long.

Decent.

For such screwed-up subject matter it's pretty compelling and very watchable.

It's the Death Wish of sex and gender. The plot follows a very similar pattern to Death Wish, but the ambitions are somewhat different. Ms. 45 uses black humor, and employs symbolism liberally - most notably the protagonist's muteness - in a bid to say meaningful things about gender relations. You don't really walk away from this with any valuable insights, but it's fairly entertaining and manages to express a certain atmosphere regarding gender that was prevalent at the time.

Random indeed. Shot in a grim and grimy New York teetering on the edge of bankruptcy (as it then was) it's a film very much of it's time. Sometimes overdone, sometimes cheesy yet well enough played to maintain your interest, a cut above the normal sub standard gore/horror/revenge movie with a bravura performance by Lund.

That's an odd-looking saxophone.

This is a fun, dirty little film that seems to be riffing off things like the Death Wish series. It'd pair well with that or with something like Hard Candy or Promising Young Woman. It's stylistically interesting and Lund (who looks quite a bit like Anya Taylor-Joy, I thought) is very good in a rare lead role with (almost) no dialogue. The final nightmarish party scene is great. Also probably the best vigilante/revenge movie with a Mr. Met cameo.

The first act had me wanting to turn it off, but it wasn't bad overall. It was a definite twist on the rape/revenge/fantasy genre, but nothing likeable or recommendable. There was an artfulness to it, in the direction and editing especially.

Thana decides that she won't be trampled on no longer and what follows is a slow descent to madness and further carnage where she sees any man as a threat and a potential abuser. Really liked the way her change is shown by what she wears or how she wears such strong make-up. That she's mute adds further to the silent communication that she displays through how she chooses to look.

An obvious cult favourite, and part of the rape-revenge canon thanks to Lund's memorable performance, but this viewer remains unconvinced about the supposed 'greatness' of Ferrara's work before 1990.

The only mute, doubled raped, revenge story you'll ever need! The most amazing thing about this was how that musician was able to get a saxophone sound out of a trumpet! Porn for modern feminists.

A pretty wild (& also pretty groovy) rape-revenge film which plays around with the genre more than most of its contemporaries & is full of symbolism so unsubtle that even a less seasoned film geek such as myself could pick up on it. The meat in the beginning, the knife positioning (at both ends) in the finale, etc. Crucially, it also doesn't advocate for what its heroine is doing, & instead simply plays out like a tragedy born from rape culture in America. Good performances, too. Worth a look.

pretty good but too unreal and detached to land anything emotionally

Simple, but the steadily rising tension and scope of violence are incredibly effective. Having the lead be mute is a drawback occasionally, but it allows for some really great scenes and a unique atmosphere, so the strengths outweigh the problems by a large margin. It's also interesting how her actions provide a conflicted perspective on the violence in the film.

Seriously awesome pulp; one of my favourite 'exploitation' films ever, and a personal favourite of mine in general. Putting a distinct twist on the rape-and-revenge subgenre with its mute protagonist, the film contains a procession of set pieces so stylistic and distinct from one another that its status is elevated beyond mere grindhouse fodder and ends up becoming one of the more memorable films of its ilk. Arthouse vigilantism.

Abel Ferrara #1

One of Ferrara's finest and a great document of the 70's New York underground despite being filmed in 1980. Also a great "what if?" scenario in response to the "Summer of Sam"

Zoê Lund was stunning on the leading role in the pretty lame story. There was sure nice twists in it, but the output was badly aged. Too many extended scenes without a reason. The sax music was annoying and I do not bother to count influences for the film.

Ms. 45: 8 // 8 // 7 // 7 // 10 // 7 // 8

Okay Movie

Death Wish with a female protagonist. Totally entertaining with greasy scumballs getting wasted by a hot chick dressed like a nun.