Tenement

This is without a doubt director Roberta Findlay crowning achievement and one of the true essential of 1980's 'urban warfare' movies. This film is proudly a B-movie, wearing it's bloody blackened heart on it's gore drenched sleeve. And I truly wouldn't have it any other way. Featuring mostly unknowns although some would later find success in varying degrees, Karen Russell (from "Vice Academy" and "Hell High"), Dan Snow (Yup, old Ciger Face himself from the Toxic Avenger movies) and Paul Calderon, who would go on to do bit parts in many great movies. This is a nasty one, broom handles where they have NO right being, sadistic violence, and general depravity combine to make a potent concoction. I loved every second of it. And the theme song by 'The Kool Crew' is great.

Eye Candy: Corinne Château and Karen Russell get topless

My Grade: A-

DVD Extras: Commentary by Roberta Findlay; Interview with Findlay; Photo gallery; radio spot; Original Trailer; and Trailers for "Blood Sisters" (with nudity), "Blood Feast 2", "Duck the Carbine high massacre", and "New Barbarians"

If one were to crown Roberta Findlay's best film, I think TENEMENT would be it. A variation of "people trapped in the house" genre, TENEMENT takes place in a run down building, all in one day with Findlay keeping the tension going with on screen titles giving the time (and sometimes even the apartment levels). This helps as the gang ruthlessly tries to make its way up to the tenants.

The gang is, as most gangs in films were during this time period, cinematic-ally goofy. It is a multi-ethnic gang dressed to the hilt in chains and leather. Findlay admits on the DVD audio commentary that during filming she encountered many real gangs in the Bronx and subsequently found out that her vision of gangs "wasn't very realistic." Regardless, the cast, comprised of mostly unknown but professional actors, is very convincing. Both Sam (Joe Lynn) and Chaco (Enrique Sandino), the leaders of the good guys and bad guys respectively, are given very strong portrayals by the actors. An interesting bit of trivia, TENEMENT marks the film debut of Paul Calderon, a recognizable character actor who went on to be in a wide range of stuff from PULP FICTION to LAW & ORDER.

One of the multiple films in the mid-80s urban warfare genre, TENEMENT is perhaps the sleaziest of the bunch. Director Findlay goes for the throat in terms of the violence, featuring brutal rapes, stabbings, throat slicing, animal mayhem and castration. It created a cumulative effect so strong that the film was award an X rating by the MPAA (interestingly, so was the gang war epic DEATH WISH 3 at the time, but it was reversed on appeal).

Tenement is good grindhouse fun and a morally indefensible slum invasion thriller with a simple story that is fiercely told. The film is simple in a way that works in its favor and it is very entertaining. The story follows a drug selling and violent street-gang who terrorize renters of a big trashy apartment-house. The action is punchy and brutal with decent performances by Paul Calderon, Karen Russell and Dan Snow. I must mention the badass grandma who was a solid support to the cast. That rape scene is quite horrifying which also draws on emotions with some humor and thrills. The film blends The Warriors/Batteries Not Included/Assault on Precinct 13 with Italian action galore influence. The film was distributed under several titles including GAME OF SURVIVAL, TENEMENT: GAME OF SURVIVAL and SLAUGHTER IN THE SOUTH BRONX. The film was directed by one of the most prolific female directors in all of exploitation cinema. Roberta Findlay, along with her husband Michael, made a number of sadistic exploitation movies before she moved on to the Adult cinema. This is one of her best works along with A Woman's Torment (1977), Blood Sisters (1987). On an overall scale, Tenement is an entertaining cheesy sleaze fare, intensely exciting & immensely satisfying independent cinema from the 1980s that manages to deliver the goods without ever letting its mediocre budget hinder its creativity or quality in any manner. Worthy of its cult status & definitely worth your time. It can sound dated for the gorehounds, nevertheless, it's still a relatively good low budget B-movie action after a slow start.

I have to admit, this is a real favorite of mine in the graphic extreme bloody genre of semi-revenge thrillers. (is that even a genre?) Oh well, I saw this back in the day, and what I remember is the x-rating it got, and I don't believe it was ever edited to get any other rating. I watched it a 2nd time last night, and listened to the interesting commentary by director Roberta Findlay. She doesn't understand why it got an x-rating at all, but believe me, this was very strong stuff back in 1985. Basicially a gang of drugged out baddies get kicked out of their basement dwelling and arrested, and soon come back to kill everybody left in the tenement. This has some great stuff in it, some really zonked out homicidal gang members, and some residents that decide to put up a fight. And it is has some pretty decent production value, and the main goodies, extreme graphic violence and a high abundance of blood. This is a good eighties nasty, which deserves a place in your sleeze collection.

Fed up with their basement serving as headquarters to a gang of violent, drug-taking street punks, the tenants of a run-down New York tenement building inform the police about their unwanted guests' stash of illegal narcotics and firearms; believing the gang to be safely behind bars, the delighted tenants hold a party to celebrate, but elation quickly turns to terror when they discover that the thugs have been released from jail and are looking for revenge.

Just a few seconds of the horribly dated rap theme-song for Tenement should be enough for most sane movie fans to switch off in abject horror, but those who stay the distance (the certifiably insane, lobotomy patients, obsessive fans of z-grade trash) will find that bad 80s music is possibly the least offensive thing about this film: schlock director Roberta Findlay packs her film to the rafters with scenes of mean-spirited violence and sleaze carefully designed to keep even the most twisted of movie degenerates drooling with glee, including several bloody stabbings, a pair of scissors in the face, a throat slashing, and a rape that ends with the old 'broom handle up the punani' routine.

Sadly, while a catalogue of assorted unsavoury acts like this would normally qualify a film as an unmissable exploitation treat in my book, Findlay's typically ham-fisted direction, unconvincing gore, and terrible performances from nearly all involved make this film a gruelling experience for all the wrong reasons. It's not often that a movie can feature so much atrocity, yet still be most memorable for its bad guys' (and gal's) terrible dress sense: sporting cropped vests (tastefully slashed), chains, black spandex, and a fetching range of studded leather apparel, they look like they've either spent the evening partying hard at an S&M club or just been to an audition for raunchy 80s dance troupe Hot Gossip.

Some IMDb reviewers have cited this as their favourite of Findlay's directorial work, although as far as I am concerned, choosing your favourite Roberta Findlay film is akin to choosing your favourite STD.