On the Street Where You Savage

Rape revenge is a complicated, complicated subgenre. Do it wrong (and more importantly, for the wrong reasons) and you’ve created something truly detestable and aggressively alienating to 51% of the population. Do it right and it will probably be perceived by most that you’ve done it wrong. 

Savage Streets falls somewhere in the middle, but when you’ve got Linda Blair serving up fierce cross-bow vengeance, you can be forgiven for quite a bit.

Quick Plot: High school underachiever Brenda loves nothing more than her girl squad and younger sister Heather (a baby-faced Linnea Quigley!), who happens to be a sweet, virginal, and deaf. After Brenda and her friends play a fairly harmless prank on a sadistic quartet of punk bullies and their sweet Chevy, poor Heather pays for it via a brutal gang rape.

The cops are fruitless in their investigation, and the school is even worse. You don't expect much when you have John Vernon playing your principal, but even in 1984, his talkdown to Brenda ("you're a bright girl, pretty face, good figure") screams of inappropriate and useless authority figures. 

Nope, if Heather is to be avenged, it's a leather jumpsuit-clad Linda Blair to the call.

Savage Streets is a troubled, occasionally troubling film, but it's also incredibly entertaining. While her hair doesn't quite match the insane levels of Summer of Fear, Linda Blair still owns her stylish not-actually-bad bad girl character to the point that I wish we had an entire franchise wherein her Brenda roamed the streets of California and beyond, serving up elaborate booby trapped-based justice to razor blade earring-wearing punks.

There really is a fresh energy about Savage Streets, even if certain subplots fizzle out due to, apparently, the film taking so long to film that some actors left the production. Sure, Brenda's preppy triangle-haired blond rival never gets a payoff, but considering it means we get an extended fully clothed gym shower fight scene filled with random naked girls half-heartedly serving as backup fighters just to flesh out (teehee) the screen, can anyone really complain?

I would have appreciated more full-out girl gang-ness instead of Blair having to wreak her vengeance solo, but I still get to, you know, watch Linda Blair zip up a black leather jumpsuit and outsmart a terrible gang of rapist murderers. It's not Shakeaspeare, but it sure is fun.

High Points

Chekhov's Law of Bear Traps (if you introduce a bear trap in the first act, you damn well better catch someone in it by the fifth) is indeed in place, and with a weekend sale price tag of $37.99 to boot!

Low Points

That being said, denying us the actual sight gag of a rapist bully IN said bear trap is a bit unfair, especially when our villains deserve far worse

Lessons Learned

Unlike peach brandy, ice cream gives you zits

Tough men can put cigarettes out on their palms

Evil bullies believe in the power of uniform so much so that they wear the same exact clothes every working day

Rent/Bury/Buy

Hey, I'm not saying Savage Streets is a good movie by any conventional means, but it's zany in a more girl-powered Death Wish 3 kind of way, with the added bonus of Linda Blair serving up strength, style, and bear traps. 

I Hope I Get It

I don't exactly know why it's taken me so long to get around to 1983's Curtains. While it's never had a hugely positive reputation, it DOES have a doll, mannequins, interpretive dance, Samantha Eggar, and, most importantly, figure skating. If that's not a movie made for Emily Intravia, then frankly, I just don't know who I am anymore.

Quick Plot: Director Jonathon Stryker (John Vernon) is attempting to mount production on Audra, a drama about a woman going insane. Film star Samantha Sherwood (the always great Eggar) is set to star and decides to undergo intense research by posing as a madwoman, going undercover and living in a mental asylum to prepare. It's method acting to the extreme, and apparently, a little too much for what Stryker wants from his leading lady.

Some time later, Stryker decides to recast his leading lady via a weekend audition session with six young contenders. Included in the group is Brooke, a seasoned pro, Christie, a figure skater(!!!!!), Patti, a comedian, Laurian, a dancer, Tara, a musician, and Amanda, who is stabbed to death before she gets the chance to reveal her trade for the talent show. 

Thankfully for all, Samantha has managed to escape from the asylum just in time to join the Survivor-meets-A Chorus Line-esque audition weekend. Naturally, the other applicants are slowly picked off, all seemingly by a multitalented masked figure. 

I didn't know much about the behind-the-scenes (or curtains) happenings involved in Curtains at first, so my initial reaction was that this film was an enjoyable mess. Some sequences are weirdly wonderful--figure skating death because OBVIOUSLY, but also a decent stalking scene and some of the drama surrounding the genuinely good and magnetic Samantha Eggar--but throughout the film, there's a lack of focus that hurts the overall effect. Too many of the young females are shortchanged in their characterization, leading me to miscount who was left and to watch one of the final girls wondering who she actually was. 

Turns out, of COURSE Curtains was a mess because that's what happens when your director walks off the set, your producer finishes shooting over the course of a few years, various cast and crew members are replaced, and rewrites abound in a way that changes your story and tone. 

So yes, Curtains is an incredibly flawed and sometimes dull film. Thankfully, it's also weird enough to justify its place on the lower tier of Canadian cult classics. This is a movie that involves death via interpretive dance. If that doesn't excite you, we simply run in different circles.

High Points

She may not have loved the material, but Samantha Eggar gives a genuinely interesting performance that helps to elevate the overall film

Low Points

Aside from Lynne Griffin, the rest of the younger female characters simply don't get enough time to stand out as individuals, making it hard to be invested in any of the tension as the numbers go down

Lessons Learned

All's fair in love and auditions

To best keep pepperoni hot, stick it to your butt

You might be an insecure figure skater because you haven't made it to the Olympics, but any gal who can tie her shoelaces while wearing fuzzy gloves should win a gold medal for something

Rent/Bury/Buy

Curtains is now streaming on Amazon Prime, and while it's not quite a lost gem of '80s cinema, it is unique enough to warrant a watch if you've never done so. You won't get nearly as much figure skating as you should, but isn't that always the case?