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Ms. 45

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I cannot believe that IMAGE has released an edited print of Abel Ferrara's great early exploitation flick, MS. 45. What is wrong with them? This 1981 movie about a very shy Manhattan woman who gets raped and abused and eventually fights back was originally released with an R rating and the old VHS release from USA Video was the uncut R rated version as well. So why is the new IMAGE version edited? Not only are both of the rape scenes near the start of the film edited, but the climactic shooting confrontation scene at the end of the movie is also cut. IMAGE calls this the "R-rated" version, but it clearly IS NOT. They should be ashamed to release such a travesty. This DVD has NO EXTRAS (not even a trailer) and it's not even the complete movie! Why even bother? Once again, IMAGE proves that they have no idea what the DVD audience is looking for. Another big "F" in my book.

Abel Ferrara's second major film (after Driller Killer, also rereleased on DVD), which has just been released on DVD, is the controversial "Ms. 45." The picture transfer is well done, really crisp and clear...you couldn't tell it was made 20 years ago except by hairstyles and clothes. The sound is not the greatest; some parts are hardly audible. And, there are no extras at all in this edition; no trailers, commentary, interviews, nothing. But as for the movie itself, those who are into revenge films will find it a pleasant surprise.

The late Zoe Tamerlaine (who has an uncanny resemblance to Denise Richards) stars as Thana, a sexy mute woman, who is the victim of rape and burglary. She survives, killing one of the rapists. But she doesn't call the cops...she instead takes the dead rapist and starts sawing up his body, later disposed in garbage bags. She then takes his 45 caliber, and this is when the movies gets really crazy. Her world becomes very delusional, and Thana starts shooting guys out of paranoia. But progressively she becomes even more trigger happy, and starts to kill any guy who advances on her, even when he is posing no immediate threat to her. The movie climaxes with a very wild, bloody shootout. "Ms. 45" has been quoted as Ferrara's "Taxi Driver"; Ferrara's direction is a less-gritty Scorsese, displaying New York through funny dialogue and scenes. The movie will satisfy gorehounds, and it will keep the viewer interested in this gory black comedy from start to finish. "Ms. 45" has been banned in many countries, and it had to be cut to get an "R" rating. Ferrara's excellent direction is a huge accomplishment this being only his second major film, and it places "Ms. 45" much higher than other feminist revenge films (eg I spit on your grave). After watching this movie, you'll see where they got the idea for "American Psycho"...

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.

I saw Ms. 45 a few months ago and was completely blown away by it. I understand it's been edited, and I assume I saw a version that had been cut. But I can assure you that it's still worth seeing.

Thana is a mute seamstress who is sexually assaulted not once, but twice, on her way home from work. When I read the description, I thought this sounded a bit overly dramatic and far-fetched. However, the way it plays out in the film is very believable, both in the way it is portrayed, and the way it effects Thana in the rest of the film.

Thana is walking home and gets attacked and raped in an alleyway. While we can still see feel genuine sympathy for Thana as the victim, we can also see how truly pathetic the rapist is, in his desperate need to have power over another person. Zoe Tamerlis does not speak, since her character is mute, but suggests more than enough with her facial expressions. Thana is in shock, and returns home to pull herself together. Once she gets to her apartment, she sits down on her bed, and the first thing she sees on the floor is a foreign pair of boots. Another rapist has entered her apartment. She has already been violated on the street where she is vulnerable, and before she is able to recover from the initial shock, she is violated further in her apartment, her own space.

Thana manages to kill the second rapist in her home, and takes his gun with her when she goes out the next day. She disposes of his body by cutting off a piece at a time and dumping it. As the corpse gradually disappears, so does Thana's composure. She begins to use the gun to kill men, first retaliating when she feels threatened, then going out in search of them, using herself as bait.

"Ms. 45" isn't so much of a feminist revenge fantasy as it is a feminist portrait of a victim turned anti-hero. In one scene, Thana walks through a park, and a group of men encircle her with the obvious intention of gang raping her. She surprises them by turning 360 degrees and killing them one by one. However, there are a few instances in which the intentions of the men she kills are not so obvious, and she seems to be killing innocent men as well as would-be rapists. The point of this is not to say that what Thana is doing is right and just, but to show the effects of sexual assault on the female victim. Women and girls who are sexually assaulted and abused by males often feel threatened by all men. This movie illustrates how sexual assault effects how female victims view men and interact with them.

The reason why I call this a feminist film is not because it glorifies her actions of revenge, but because it follows the story of the female victim from beginning to end. In most slasher movies, we usually see one or more women who are killed for voyeuristic purposes, which many feminist film theorists consider mysoginistic. The female victim looks attractive, and keeps the audience entertained by dying a violent death before she is ever developed as an actual character. In "Ms. 45," the male attackers themselves are the ones who never become further developed, and Thana is the one we follow, the one we care about.

Zoe Tamerlis is perfect as the mute Thana. Although she never speaks, her face shows the gradual transformation from shrinking violet to femme fatale killing machine. Portraying Thana as a mute is a brilliant move on part of Abel Ferrera. Rape is the most underreported crime, and Thana's inability to speak symbolizes perfectly a sexual assault victim's inability to express what happened to her.

"Ms. 45" is considered an exploitation movie. If it is, it's the one of the finest, most real, and most sensitive exploitation movies I've ever seen. Feminist exploitation cinema, just like the Jack Hill classic, "Switchblade Sisters."

Good exploitation films should upset the apple-cart, cross over the line, and upset community censors. Many of Abel Ferrar's best films: King of New York, Bad Lieutenant, Fear City and The Addition do just that. His best film however remains this very low budget 1981 effort which fuses the most effective parts of Taxi Driver and Death Wish, with I Spit on Your Grave. It was his second legit. film (after Driller Killer).

While 'I Spit..", was made in sub-Herschell Gordon Lewis fashion and is a nearly unwatchable, amateurish gore film, Ms. 45 remains an exploitation classic. And it's been made by a director who despite a minimal budget, delivers a film of some vision and atmosphere. Don't get me wrong, this is still sick and rather strong stuff.

Ms. 45 gives us a young, sexy woman as it's protagonist (a rarity at the time). She is at first a pitiful victim. She's a 17 - year- old garment-district worker, who's barely surviving on the mean streets of New York. The film quickly establishes how alone she is in the crowded city. She's not just alone, but she's unable to fit in or communicate effectively with anyone (Taxi Driver). She's a mute (most likely a traumatic reaction to a childhood of probable sexual abuse) and she's raped not once, but twice in one day (yes the first alley-way rapist is Abel himself). She fights back, killing her second rapist/robber, and gaining confidence as she cuts up his body in her bathtub. Perhaps an homage or two to Diabolique, Psycho and Repulsion are intended (but don't worry this is exploitation at it's finest--not art). She decides her new mission in life is as an avenger against man's sexual aggressions toward women. No overly agressive man or would-be rapist is going to get away unscathed if caught by MS. 45. But not all the people she kills even in movie realy deserve to be killed. So our beautiful, mute, avenger becomes herself a serial killer. She's no longer a sympathetic victim out for revenge, but a stalker herself. There's a few surprises, some interesting jazz music on the soundtrack and plenty of violence and gore to satisfy the exploitation lover.

There's also some fine low budget film-making on display as well. And Zoe Tamerlis' performance is much better than the type of performances one is used to encountering in films of this type. That means the film isn't one to enjoy on a campy level, and it's not one that allows its audience to simply enjoy it's blood lust (as say Death Wish may have). This film has more on its mind, and it's a disturbing, memorable film.

The controversy this film still creates is purposefully earned. The film was written by usual Abel collaborator, Nicholas St. John.

Chris Jarmick Author of The Glass Cocoon with Serena F. Holder - A steamy cyber thriller available January 2001. Please order it today. Thank You

Integral (i.e. uncut w/any and all deleted scenes restored) version of this film is available as a PAL import on Amazon or just go to the source on Amazon France. You'll need a multi-region player AND multi-region TV but the investment is worth it. You'll enjoy many foreign films with zero hassle and no censorship. Try it you'll like it.

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.

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.

Ms. 45 is like every "Female gets revenge" movie ever made rolled into one. It reminded me of a combination of I Spit On Your Grave, Carrie, and The Brave One, even though Ms. 45 came out a couple of decades before The Brave One. This is the perfect way to pace a movie. It gets better and better as it goes along. The scene at the Halloween Party is absolutely brilliant and is definitely the best part of the movie. Highly recommended revenge thriller!

Ultra-dark-and-violent-loving director Abel Ferrara's first film (this one) is, like a lot of his peers' first efforts: a low-budget affair but one that got him attention and jump-started his career. I found this to be a memorable film, like "Death Wish," except a B-quality to it.

The actors in here are nobodies and really not that good, particularly the landlady (Editta Sherman) who is so horrible an actress that she's interesting only because she's so inept. Zoe Tamerlis, who played the main character, is almost mesmerizing in her role even though she's a mute so we never hear her voice. She has a pretty face and gave us some effective facial expressions. Too bad she never made it as a star and then died young of a drug overdose. That's sad.

Earlier I mentioned "Death Wish" because this story is strictly a female version of that film and its main character, played by Charles Bronson. In here, a nice girl gets raped not once but twice within hours, snaps, and goes out on a killing spree, killing the scum of the city. Yeah, it's pretty basic revenge on the lowest of levels but it's a satisfying film nonetheless and, at 80 minutes, breezes by.

"Ms. 45" is definitely worth a look if you like these kind of low-budget revenge flicks.