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Ms.45 (1981) aka "Angel of Vengeance"

Dir: Abel Ferrara

Thana (Zoë Lund, then known as Zoë Tamerlis) is a young, mute, woman who scrapes out a living in New York in a garment factory for her creepy, pretentious boss Albert (Albert Sinkys).

One day, when returning home, she is dragged into a n alley and raped by a man in a mask (Director Abel Ferrara under his acting pseudonym 'Jimmy Laine') who threatens that he will be back to find her.

Dazed, she stumbles back to her apartment only to be attacked and raped again by an armed burglar (Peter Yellen), but manages to fight him off and kill him.
Cutting up the body in the bath she puts the bits in bin bags and keeps them in her fridge, until her nosy landlady (Editta Sherman) and her dog takes an interest and force her to dump the body parts randomly around the city.

Traumatised by her ordeal Thana makes it her mission to kill any man who crosses her path…..

 

Unlike "Driller Killer", which went against the basic assumptions that the audience had (something that still catches out first time viewers even today) about what kind of movie they were going to see, "Ms.45" really does do what it says on the box.
It is on the surface a straightforward rape/revenge/vigilante flick and it's only in the underlying plot points and events (unlike the more obviously unusual "Driller Killer") that Ferrara tries to do something different with this oft used plot and go against the grain.

With his semi-regular partner creative Nicholas St John on script duties (though Lund is known to have had input as well) Ferrara not only delivers a fast moving, violent vigilante film but also a compulsive study of the destruction of a person's whole being by a random act of violence.

Regular Ferrara Composer Joe Delia does yet another fine job; mixing piano led music as well as a sleazy saxophone accompaniment.
And, strange though it might seem, some of the piano based cues are very similar to some of Fabio Frizzi's minimalist moments in his score for Lucio Fulci's "The Beyond", released in Italy in the same year as "Ms.45" but not America until two years later.

As Ferrara is shooting in his favourite city, New York, you can be assured that the film looks perfect in it's urban squalor and James Lemmo's camera (who had lensed "Driller Killer") does all that is expected of it as it follows Thana on her tragic journey. We are even given a nod to Hitchcock's "Psycho" with a close up of the bathtub plug hole, as the blood runs down, that then changes into the close up of an eye.

Performances are okay, but only the tragic Zoë Lund (who was supposedly stalked and even wounded by a crazed male sniper following her appearance in the movie) stands out. In a dialogue free role she does a fine job at essaying Thana's terror, shock and then murderous coldness, and her striking looks are a major asset to the entire project.

Despite Ferrara's reputation (one that is sometimes justified) for going to extremes, both rapes shy away from any nudity or explicit detail. The first (with a brief side shot of Thana's underwear being pulled down) is over very fast and it's setting that Ferrara cleverly rams home (pun not intended) the horror of the event. That she is raped over a rubbish bin in a dirty alley speaks volumes.
The second rape, although much longer, is actually very subdued, and is actually more powerful for it.
Again non-explicit visuals are used to bring home the horror. The most obvious is the face of Lund herself, most noticeably as she is initially violated when Ferrara makes sure that her large, expressive eyes convey all the pain her body is going through. And Abel also, superbly, shows us the rapist's pleasure by having him ram his gun down again and again as he approaches climax. A more Freudian visual device you could not imagine.

An hallucination that Thana suffers in her bathroom is a visual key to the character's mental make-up (and break up) and later motivations, as the person she sees with her is the unknown alleyway rapist that said he would be back.
That he never would be back and that she was just as faceless to him as he was, literally, to her is not important, it does even register with her. It's simply the fact that (unlike the dead rapist) he IS out there, just like any and every other man, which means he becomes ALL men and accordingly all men become HIM.

In fact there is not a single man in the film (who is given any kind of dialogue of characterisation) that is anything but unpleasant.
The main male character is the (probably bi-sexual) boss of the garment factory, Albert.
He is a character of contrasts as far as Thana and the viewer's are concerned because one moment we would see him ranting at her then he would be showing concern for how the, understandably distraught, Thana is behaving. But in keeping with the film's observations on men he will show his true colours via comments like 'you have to try harder than a normal person' (making reference to her not being able to speak) and by making lecherous physical advances to her.
Thus all men are seen as either a direct threat or as something untrustworthy.

The screenplay takes a very unusual route with Thana's first 'vigilante' killing that is quite unusual
That the guy is up to no good is never in question, but that he is killed while doing something basically innocent, helpful even (though his motives are open to question for sure), means that not only is her first execution (seemingly unplanned, but she IS now carrying a gun) rushed and obviously traumatic for Thana, but it's also portrayed as possibly unjustified. Something that will rear its head throughout the film as Thana becomes more and more unstable.

Following this first killing her second murder (although fortuitous in it's origins) does, even at this early stage, see Thana now in full control as she calmly shoots the man (creating a visceral piece of blood spattered artwork as his life blood spurts out onto a white sheet covering the back wall of the room) and calmly leaves.
And when in the next shot Ferrara shows Thana applying harsh, but sexually powerful, make-up and sporting a tied back, uniform sharp, hairstyle we know that her mental transformation is there for all to see in this stark physical representation.
Indeed her next assassination (for that's truly what it is) is an act of completely emotionless, scalpel sharp death dealing and Ferrara's expert staging and Lund's perfectly judged movements deliver one of the film's visual highlights.

As with all Vigilante movies the film does have to bow down to fate and coincidence. Just as Paul Kersey, in Michael Winner's seminal "Death Wish", suddenly had no problem in attracting and finding muggers and general lowlifes, despite there being no evidence that he ever came into contact with them before the attack on his family, Thana seems to have no problem in finding them either after her rape, though given her sex and the way she purposely dresses the contrivance is less jarring.
Though the sequence where she literally goes from one encounter straight into another one (a very unlikely encounter at that and based purely on lucky timing) does stretch credibility.
But of course without that you would not have a film, so all is forgiven as long as what is delivered surmounts these contrivances. And thankfully, like "Death Wish", "Ms.45" does just that.

The biggest difference though in "Ms.45" (a title that is full of deeper meanings actually as Thana really does become as emotionless and indiscriminate as her gun) and other vigilante movies is that the heroine really is portrayed as mentally unbalanced. As the film progresses Thana is shown to target any man she feels like, even those that have done nothing at all (like a man opening a door who never even sees her) or at the most only said something in slightly bad taste.
This would seem to be because the initial catalyst to her actions happened directly to her (as opposed to someone she loved as in "Death Wish" or Bill Lustig's excellent "Vigilante"), but even then this is taken to further extremes than "I Spit on Your Grave" or "Naked Vengeance" where the victim vigilante may be mentally scarred but only targets those who actually harmed them.
Perhaps this is why Ferrara and Nicholas St John ultimately have the film play out as it does (again a conclusion that is rarely seen in most vigilante thrillers) as they may be sympathetic to Thana but never glorify her. She is damaged beyond repair and St John never wavers from showing is that.

The Halloween party finale is justly famous and is a tour de force example of the power of purely visual cinema. It also ends in a sexually ironic way as a woman becomes the saviour but in such a way that there is explicit visual reference by Ferrara to the male phallus.

The movie also plays havoc with the male viewer's psyche. Lund is genuinely sexy and commanding (especially when she puts on the iconic Nun's outfit) but that the whole idea of the film is Thana's trapping and subsequent destruction of all those that would indeed find her attractive and alluring (an even more important issue as she has no specific target) means we become the very thing she would coldly put a bullet into.

And it's these observations and issues, that play below the basic 'sexy vigilante gal with a gun' set-up, that add so much weight to "Ms.45" and showcase perfectly that Ferrara is at his best when he captures that sleazy New York, concrete jungle atmosphere while at the same time delivering balls-out, expertly crafted, violent entertainment that also delivers something much deeper under its grimy surface.
Essential Ferrara and essential Exploitation viewing in general.