Ms. 45

Rating:
Summary: The original Kill Bill (...well, sort of...) ?
Review: Take the swordplay out of "Kill Bill" and add a heaping cup of creepiness and you've got Ms.45: a helluva flick about a woman done wrong --REALLY WRONG-- who gets so much revenge you'll be afraid to look almost any female in the eye. This is not a film about a relationship (as "Kill Bill" was) but rather a hardcore film about lonely vengeance. It a slowly maddening spiral into the private hell of the ultimate victim. On one hand it will leave you cheering for her (feels so good to see male sex monsters get what's coming to them) and on the other hand you will be left screaming innocent men to run for their frickin' lives! This is a great flick. The perfect female "Death Wish". It was captivating from start to finish. Sexy, disturbing, and wild-eyed. The fact that it is dripping with 70's styles and sounds and ambience just made it all the more surreal to me. If you want a simple movie with a deep complex terror that will leave it's mark right between your eyes, you gotta see "Ms.45"!

Rating:
Summary: Impressive
Review: This is light years ahead of trash like "I Spit On Your Grave". Although it has a similar rape/revenge story line, "Ms .45" is an intelligent, engrossing and shocking film. The story involves a withdrawn, mute girl who is subjected to a brutal rape in the street. She returns home in shock, only to disturb a burglar, who assaults her again, but this time she hits back and manages to kill him. From this point on her life starts to disintegrate, and the film charts her descent into murdering mayhem. Ferrara manages to portray the characters slide into madness as totally believeable, and Zoe Tamerlis is thoroughly convincing in the role of Thana, despite the fact that she never utters a word. From the initial terror and nightmares following the attack, Thana starts to lash out at every threatening man she encounters, then, acquiring a gun, she begins to stalk the streets, purposely exterminating men in general! The development of her character is fascinating to watch, unlike "I Spit On Your Grave", where the heroine becomes completely emotionless after her experience, and cannot be identified with at all. Despite some very amateur perfgormances from the supporting cast,"Ms .45" is compelling and gruesome viewing, and draws you with it all the way to the final tragic conlusion.

Rating:
Summary: Impressive
Review: This is light years ahead of trash like "I Spit On Your Grave". Although it has a similar rape/revenge story line, "Ms .45" is an intelligent, engrossing and shocking film. The story involves a withdrawn, mute girl who is subjected to a brutal rape in the street. She returns home in shock, only to disturb a burglar, who assaults her again, but this time she hits back and manages to kill him. From this point on her life starts to disintegrate, and the film charts her descent into murdering mayhem. Ferrara manages to portray the characters slide into madness as totally believeable, and Zoe Tamerlis is thoroughly convincing in the role of Thana, despite the fact that she never utters a word. From the initial terror and nightmares following the attack, Thana starts to lash out at every threatening man she encounters, then, acquiring a gun, she begins to stalk the streets, purposely exterminating men in general! The development of her character is fascinating to watch, unlike "I Spit On Your Grave", where the heroine becomes completely emotionless after her experience, and cannot be identified with at all. Despite some very amateur perfgormances from the supporting cast,"Ms .45" is compelling and gruesome viewing, and draws you with it all the way to the final tragic conlusion.

Rating:
Summary: This DVD release is edited.
Review: This version has been edited. The film was released in 1981 with a MPAA rating of X. Current distributors of this film have released the R version. Two minutes of the film are cut (rape scenes). The original can be found on VHS only by Xenon Entertainment. They are out of print but copies can be found ...

The lead character (Zoe Lund) in this film also wrote the screenplay for "Bad Leutinant" with Harvey Keitel and she is in a scene in that movie also.

Zoe Lund died in 1997 at 37 years old and was a herion junkie.

Rating:
Summary: This DVD release is edited.
Review: This version has been edited. The film was released in 1981 with a MPAA rating of X. Current distributors of this film have released the R version. Two minutes of the film are cut (rape scenes). The original can be found on VHS only by Xenon Entertainment. They are out of print but copies can be found ...

The lead character (Zoe Lund) in this film also wrote the screenplay for "Bad Leutinant" with Harvey Keitel and she is in a scene in that movie also.

Zoe Lund died in 1997 at 37 years old and was a herion junkie.

Rating:
Summary: Demented story and lousy acting....
Review: Zoe Tamerlis (also known as Zoe Lund) died a few years back in Paris of an apparent drug overdose. Even though she'd never be a household name, the actress had a cult following in the States -- largely as a result of her debut film, Abel Ferrara's violent Ms. 45. Made when she was only seveteen, Ms. 45 stars Tamerlis as Thana, a young, mute woman who works in New York's garment district and spends her days suffering in forced silence as basically every male on the planet either propositions her or taunts her with sexist comments. (One of the film's more disturbing aspects isn't that not a single positive man makes an appearance but that the male ogres who do show up are all so believable and familiar.) One day, in a coincidence that points to the film's exploitation roots, Thana is raped twice by two different men in one day. After the second rape, the mute Thana finally asserts her independence by killing her attacker and from there, the film's plot shifts into high gear. Thana now starts to roam the streets of New York at night, deliberately enticing men and then, once they respond, gunning them down. In perhaps the film's most famous scene, Thana dresses up as a sexy nun and takes on a street gang. Anyway, Thana becomes progressively more and more unhinged (and since this is an Abel Ferrara film, the New York imagery becomes more and more surreal and Hellish) and goes from shooting just potential rapists to any man who crosses her path. While the plot may make this sound like just another exploitation flick, the film actually has a disturbing intensity to it that makes it, at times, quite disturbing to watch. Ferrara's direction, while stylized, is also far more realistic than most other exploitation films and Tamerlis's amazing performance keeps the film rooted in a very real sense of pain and danger. She is the center of the film and she plays every aspect of her character with such force and credibility that its hard not to get sucked into her fractured reality. And its a reality that stays with you long after the film is over.

Rating:
Summary: Appreciating the late Zoe Tamerlis
Review: Zoe Tamerlis (also known as Zoe Lund) died a few years back in Paris of an apparent drug overdose. Even though she'd never be a household name, the actress had a cult following in the States -- largely as a result of her debut film, Abel Ferrara's violent Ms. 45. Made when she was only seveteen, Ms. 45 stars Tamerlis as Thana, a young, mute woman who works in New York's garment district and spends her days suffering in forced silence as basically every male on the planet either propositions her or taunts her with sexist comments. (One of the film's more disturbing aspects isn't that not a single positive man makes an appearance but that the male ogres who do show up are all so believable and familiar.) One day, in a coincidence that points to the film's exploitation roots, Thana is raped twice by two different men in one day. After the second rape, the mute Thana finally asserts her independence by killing her attacker and from there, the film's plot shifts into high gear. Thana now starts to roam the streets of New York at night, deliberately enticing men and then, once they respond, gunning them down. In perhaps the film's most famous scene, Thana dresses up as a sexy nun and takes on a street gang. Anyway, Thana becomes progressively more and more unhinged (and since this is an Abel Ferrara film, the New York imagery becomes more and more surreal and Hellish) and goes from shooting just potential rapists to any man who crosses her path. While the plot may make this sound like just another exploitation flick, the film actually has a disturbing intensity to it that makes it, at times, quite disturbing to watch. Ferrara's direction, while stylized, is also far more realistic than most other exploitation films and Tamerlis's amazing performance keeps the film rooted in a very real sense of pain and danger. She is the center of the film and she plays every aspect of her character with such force and credibility that its hard not to get sucked into her fractured reality. And its a reality that stays with you long after the film is over.