I'm not at all familiar with the hicksploitation genre outside of its out and out horror entries, so Hot Water was a bit of an education for me. It definitely comes under the mantle of horror mind, but it isn't the slasher or TCM clone it was marketed as, more a fun and trashy, even suspenseful hicks plus city gals equals bad times tale. Hookers KC and Jo get released from jail and find themselves rich after a run in with their crazy aggressive pimp. They decide to head out and start a new life, which they plan to do by setting up a marina in a backwater town, not counting on despicable locals, especially a retarded momma's boy by the name of Junior, who proves to make their stay pretty stressful, as well as the mean local sheriff. I was a little bothered by the pairs lack of logic here, I'm all for female empowerment and all that chit and KC and Jo make for highly appealing heroines, but I can't see anyone other than the most bull headed no brain trying to set up shop in a territory where just three people like them, as opposed to literally everyone else. Still, their unbelievable stubbornness marks them out as appealingly spunky and its good to see a film like this where the female leads have proverbial balls from the get go. The comely Suzanne DeLaurentiis (daughter of Dino?) is a blast as the tough and brassy KC, though I would have liked her even more had she not been sporting brunette hair as opposed to her seemingly natural red, since as we all know redheads are awesome to the max. Linda Singer is a nice contrast as the blonde and ditzy Jo with an amusing habit of talking about movies at relevant but inopportune moments and they have a fun chemistry, supported by Michael McKeever and Cotton Mather as their charming beaus. On the villainous side of things Jeremy Ratchford is effectively sleazy and unpleasant as Junior, packing a good lumbering menace, while Ken Roberts is suitably officious and scummy as the sheriff. The smart pace and build up of events is what really gives this one a kick though, things start with unwanted intrusion but grow to attempted rape, fish-hook violence, a terrific chainsaw attack and verbal abuse a-plenty amongst other things, lots of fun stuff here and a bodacious, surprisingly intense finale. The big downside is that there really isn't much in the way of bloodshed here, there are a few bits where full on brutality would have really worked but it just isn't there (although what is there was still enough to make the astoundingly cretinous BBFC of 1986 cut this one by nearly ten minutes for its UK video release. There's a bit of nudity though, which is pretty rad as the stars are fine. Overall this is real solid stuff, sweet locations, decent amount of the good stuff, could have packed more punch but still cool, check it out says I.
