Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Savage Streets (USA; Danny Steinmann, 1984)


 There's just something about bad 80s movies I simply can't resist. Just seeing the posters for some of these films makes me go "I gotta see this!" even though I am certain of their ultimate mediocrity. It's as if all of the usual conventions found in mainstream Hollywood films are thrown out the window, the focus being on easily  exploitable material, a.k.a B.T & A (blood, tits & ass). Proving once again that Linda Blair can't act to save her life, this girl-power revenge flick is as trashy as they come. The antagonists are over-the-top disgusting perverts whose decision to rape a  young, deaf high school girl leads her older sister Brenda (Blair) to go on a killing streak, chasing down the perpetrators one by one. While the deaf-victim/revenge angle reminded me of Ms. 45 (1981), Savage Streets possesses none of the startling grittiness of Abel Ferrara's cult classic. It rather feels like a Troma picture gone wrong (which is saying a lot). However, like so many titles of 80s cinema, the reasons that make the film so terrible are the same that make it so enjoyable. Over-acting, bad lighting, shaky out-of-focus camera work and  signature 80s synthesizer music all work together to create one of the best bad movies I've had the luck to see. 

  

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