Product Description

A young, voluptuous New York City woman is intensely shy and unable to speak. Her naive beauty provokes the aggressive attention of all men. One evening while walking home, she is assaulted at gunpoint and brutally raped by two thugs. Her enormous fears, which had driven her inward before, now push her to an outward course of action. After killing one of her assailants, she cuts his body into pieces and disposes of the parts, one by one, at various spots in Manhattan. She carries her dead assailant's .45 automatic, initially for protection, but ultimately for unrelenting revenge against all males. Men, keep your legs crossed for this frightfully erotic thriller that delves into the life of a nubile young maiden out for blood.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #101832 in DVD
• Released on: 2000-04-25
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 80 minutes

Amazon.com
Abel Ferrara, the bad boy of American independent filmmaking, made his first splash with this violent twist on Death Wish and the revenge-vigilante genre. Nastassja Kinski look-alike Zoë Tamerlis Lund stars as a beautiful mute seamstress in New York's garment district, a shrinking violet who is brutally raped and assaulted not once but twice in the same day. After dispatching the second predator in an adrenaline-driven rush of panic, she pockets his handgun and disposes of the body in small chunks. Tamerlis makes the most of her wordless role, her wide-eyed vulnerability hardening to a dead-eyed determination as she transforms from quivering victim to avenging dark angel, a one-woman vigilante force hunting pimps, perverts, sickos, and slimeballs and using herself as bait. Consider this Ferrara's Taxi Driver, a very different portrait of New York's mean streets. Though this shot-on-the-cheap production occasionally suffers from amateurish performances in supporting roles, Ferrara's impeccable eye for composition and bravura sense of editing create momentum that carries it through to its memorable Halloween party finale. Tamerlis is decked out in a nun's habit with a slash of lipstick across her face, a handgun tucked in a garter, and a contract out on the entire male sex. It's a deliriously effective exploitation thriller that undercuts every expectation of the genre. Ferrara makes a cameo as the first attacker. Tamerlis later cowrote and costarred in Ferrara's most notorious production, Bad Lieutenant. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

DVD is EDITED - What Is Wrong With Image Entertainment ?
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.

A Feminist Taxi Driver
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."

Not your typical feminist revenge film...
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"...