Ms .45
Tags: suspenseful, neo noir, grindhouse film, murder, cult, violence, revenge

Plot synopsis:
In New York City's garment district, Thana is a young seamstress who works in a small clothing firm. She is friends with Laurie and two other female co-workers, but she lives in a lonely existence in a small apartment in Clinton Gardens. One typical day after work, her boss, Albert, sends his workers home while he tries to please a buyer for his clothing designs. As the four ladies walk down the street, they must march past leering and dirty men who make obscene remarks and come-ons at them. Laurie protests and insults them vehemently, but Thana is silent because she is physically and mentally a mute. When the three friends leave to enter a subway station for their destination home, Thana goes off on her own. After grocery shopping in a local supermarket, Thana, walking home, is grabbed by a mugger who rapes her in a deserted alley before stealing her purse. Thana stumbles into her apartment unaware that it is being robbed. Held at gunpoint by the burglar, she is raped a second time. But afterwards, Thana grabs an iron and bludgeons the intruder to death. Momentarily stunned by what she did, Thana drags his dead body to the bathroom and places it in the bathtubThe next day, Thana goes to work as usual. It is clear at this point that she doesn't enjoy her job because Albert is always yelling at all his female employees, or acts patronizingly towards her. When she accidentally burns a shirt that she is ironing when the images remind her of the previous day's event, Albert further yells at her. After work, Thana gets an idea of what to do with the dead man in her apartment. She returns home and spends all night cutting the dead rapist's body into pieces and placing them in plastic garbage bags which she stuffs into her refrigerator and freezer. Over the course of the entire movie, Thana gets rid of the plastic bags of the dead rapist one by one by disposing of them in various locations all over the cityOne day, when Thana gets out of a taxi to dispose of the latest bag, a leering man with a ducktop hairstyle sees her and begins to follow her. When the man retrieves one of her bags and attempts to return it to her without examining the contents of it, Thana runs. The man runs after her. After a chase through the streets, Thana runs into an alley that has a dead end. When the man catches up to her to "return" the bag, Thana, finally aware that the man intends to attack her, pulls out a gun that she took from the dead rapist and shoots her would-be assailant dead. Thana runs home and throws up in her bathroom in shock and disbelief at what she did. Her nosy and obnoxious landlady sees her running and demands to know what is going on, but Thana refuses to offer a written explanation.Over the next few days, Thana continues to have trouble concentrating at work, staring off and being negligent. While her landlady continues to annoy and spy on her, her yapping runt of a dog, Phil, continues barking day and night. At work, Albert scolds Thana for not making the best effort. However, he invites her to come to the company's annual Halloween costume party in a few weeks. Thana writes a note to Albert telling him that she'll let him know. Thana also notices newspaper clips reporting findings of an unknown body as well as the mysterious ".45 caliber killing" of an ex-convict the previous day.That afternoon, Laurie takes Thana and her two co-workers out for lunch at a local hamburger restaurant. While eating, the four women notice a man and a woman making out nearby in a booth. When the woman leaves, the cocky man tries to flirt with the four women at their table. But Laurie naturally tells him to "fuck off" when he comes on to her and she tells him that she's "not into men". A little later, when Laurie and the other two ladies leave, Thana is beside herself. When Thana leaves the restaurant, the man follows her out and coaxes her to come back to his loft, claiming to be a photographer who would like her to pose for him. As soon as they enter a building and take an elevator up to what's revealed as a cheap studio, Thana suddenly without warning, pulls out her gun and empties it into the sleazy photographer, killing him.At night, Thana dresses up like a hooker with blood red lipstick, her face pasty white, and goes out with another one of the bags with the rapist's remains in it, leaving a note for the landlady that she's "spending the night with a friend." After disposing of the bag in a train station locker, Thana ventures out onto the dark streets to look for attackers. Thana sees a pimp beating up a prostitute, and shoots the man dead from across the street before fleeing. She ventures to Central Park where five gang members surround her just as she wanted them to. With quick shots, she guns them all down. As it begins to rain, Thana leaves the park and is picked up by a limo containing an Arab sheik who pays her $100 for "services". At a red light, Thana kills him and his bodyguard/chauffeur. Thana returns home the next morning, and, further agitated by her landlady's barking dog, gives him some of the rapist's dead body to eat.Thana continues to dispose of parts of the rapist's body, disposing of one bag in the car truck of a man from Georgia state, and other in a bag lady's shopping cart, while she continues working at her job and agrees with Albert's request to attend the costume party this coming Friday.That night, Thana goes out again looking for more victims. This time dressed in a cloak, partly obscuring her face, she first ventures to Chinatown and attempts to shoot an innocent Chinese man making out with his girlfriend, but the man enters his apartment building, and unknowingly gets away.At a local bar, Thana meets an unhappy man who, seeing that she's a mute, rambles onto her about his bad luck-prone life. Out on the street at a bench overlooking the East River, the man further rambles on about finding his cheating girlfriend first with another man, then with a woman. Thana points her gun at the man's head, but for some reason her gun misfires. The man snatches the gun away from Thana and realizes that she intended to kill him in cold blood, even though he has not made any move onto her. The man tells Thana that he will save her the effort in which he puts the gun to his head, and pulls the trigger, killing himself.One day, Thana finally reaches the breaking point over Phil's constant barking and takes him out for a walk. She ties the dog to a post at an East River waterfront and points her gun at him. But for some reason, Thana cannot bring herself to shoot the terrified and whimpering small dog, so she leaves him there.That night, Thana goes to the company costume party dressed as a nun with high-heeled boots and red-lipstick where she meets with Albert and the other employees in the midst of partying.Meanwhile, Thana's landlady enters her apartment. Thinking that Thana might have killed her dog, as it never returned from its walk with her, the landlady looks around for any evidence of foul play. The landlady opens Thana's refrigerator, but by this time all of the trash bags containing the rapist's body parts are gone.... except one which the landlady finds in the freezer. Thinking it may be her pet dog, the landlady opens it and it's the severed head of the dead rapist. The landlady calls the police where she shows them the head and also tells them where Thana may be.At the costume party, Thana dances with Albert and then retires with him to a nearby office where Albert flirts with her wanting to make out. When he crawls under her nun's habit, he spots the .45 gun in her corset. Thana shoots and kills him. Now completely deranged, Thana emerges from the office and begins to shoot at all the men that she sees at the party in a violent, slow-motion sequence. Laurie, failing to stop Thana's rampage by shouting at her, grabs a nearby butcher knife and fatally stabs Thana in the back. Thana screams and whirls around pointing the gun at Laurie, who backs up in terror. But Thana cannot bring herself to shoot a woman. With a mixed look of shock and disappointment in her eyes, Thana stumbles over to Laurie and replies "sister...." the only time anyone has ever heard her speak, and falls to the floor dead.Back at Thana's apartment building, her landlady mourns for her missing dog. But Phil is not dead. He runs into the building after apparently freeing himself from the post and scratches on the landlady's front door.

Review: Abel Ferrara and his co-conspirator Nicholas St. John follow the life of a mute dress worker (Zoe Lund) who snaps one day after being raped twice.
Soon, she's finding empowerment by using the gun to dispose of any man that may potentially take advantage of her or other women.I am not a fan of the rape/revenge genre, but this compelling film miraculously manages to avoid exploitation on nearly every level.
While the content of "Ms. 45" is obviously over-the-top and exaggerated, it manages to retain a sense of dignity that rises above tacky movies like "Baise Moi" and "I Spit on Your Grave." Zoe Lund is incredible as the lead actress, depending on her versatile facial expressions to portray what mental state the character is in.My Rating: 7.5/10..
Abel Ferrara, who later made brilliant movies like 'Bad Lieutenant' and 'The Funeral', had previously made a porno movie and the infamous "video nasty" 'The Driller Killer' before this, which could well be the best rape revenge movie ever made.
If it's gritty, authentic 80s exploitation you're after, then look no further than Abel Ferrara's excellent rape/revenge thriller, Ms.45, which stars the stunning Zoe Tamerlis as Thana, a mute seamstress who goes on a killing spree after being sexually assaulted twice in one day.
This feminist version of Death Wish is an ultra-stylish, mega-violent, and super-cool classic of the genre that never pulls its punches, and is highly recommended to fans of similarly themed cult movies such as The Exterminator, Thriller: A Cruel Picture, and I Spit On Your Grave.Whilst Ferrara's tale is admittedly the stuff of pure B-movie trash, with Thana ultimately becoming an insane, man-hating, killing-machine spewing bullets indiscriminately at any male who crosses her path, the film manages to transcend its low budget roots to become a genuine work of art thanks to its superb visuals, an unforgettable performance from the beguiling lead actress, and brilliant use of a jazzy soundtrack.Like many great exploitation pics of the era, the film makes excellent use of a very seedy looking New York, with worthless punks, violent pimps, and sexist scumbags hanging on every street corner, just begging for a slug from a .45 right between the eyes (which reminds me, is yelling 'hey, baby doll' to passing women a recommended dating technique in the Big Apple?).
Drawing his inspiration from the thoroughly sleazy vibe of early 80s downtown Manhattan, Ferrara delivers an unforgettable experience that offers viewers several truly iconic moments of exploitation cinema, including Thana's transition from meek dressmaker to blood-red lipstick wearing vigilante (accompanied by a screeching saxophone), the stunning execution of a street-gang in Central Park, and the amazing finale where Thana, wearing a sexy nun outfit, loses her cool at a fancy dress party.Slick, riveting and totally unmissable, Ms.45 gets an almost-perfect 9/10 from me (it would've got a 10 if it hadn't been for Editta Sherman's irritating performance as Thana's nosey landlady, Mrs. NasoneI don't understand why SHE couldn't have accidentally caught a stray bullet in the head!)..
Ultra-dark-and-violent-loving director Abel Ferrara's first film (this one) is, like a lot of his peers' first efforts: a low-budget affair but one that got him attention and jump-started his career.The actors in here are nobodies and really not that good, particularly the landlady (Editta Sherman) who is so horrible an actress that she's interesting only because she's so inept.
Women RULE this world, whether they carry around .45 caliber guns or not Infamous cult movie director Abel Ferrara's interpretation of feminism revolves on a mute and seemly defenseless young beauty that wipes male scum from the face of the earth with a pistol.
"Angel of Vengeance" is a cult-movie by Abel Ferrara with elements of "Death Wish" when a simple woman goes insane after being raped twice in one day and she uses the criminal's gun to kill every man that makes a pass on her.
Zoe Lund (who was only 17 at the time of filming) plays Thana a mute woman who works in the garment district of NYC.
Fat chance of that - she finally takes her moment, and Thana hits the guy to the ground and then with an iron kills him.From then on the film takes its beat as something of a quandary, but a truly fascinating one: this isn't quite an exploitation flick, but it's not really a vigilante action-revenge picture like Death Wish, and yet it has hints of both.
But she is good at getting her chance to kill people, and she does, even if they haven't really done anything to her (one of the more curiously ambiguous scenes is when Thana meets a guy at a bar, he keeps rambling outside about strangling his cat, she's about to shoot and it doesn't fire, he takes the gun and instead of shooting her shoots himself)True, not all of the acting Ferrara is able to gather up totally works; some of them, like two actors playing a pimp and a prostitute (even for one scene) falls flat as believable streetwise (better is Thana's boss, a creep who wants to have his way with her but hides it under a thin veneer of professionalism and care).
Ms. 45 is action and a bit of horror (dismembered body anyone?) but it's also a sad tale of a girl without any hope, who is going crazier by the day and dresses out in black like a spider out on the prowl.It's got some bad-ass dimensions of drama, and a rather wicked climax involving slow-motion and Ms. 45 herself going in her maniac mode in a nun costume, and is mostly marred by a few sub-par supporting performances (albeit a very low-budget indie from NYC) and a few little unsatisfying scenes..
A shy and mute seamstress (Zoe Lund) goes insane after being attacked and raped twice in one day, in which she takes to the streets of New York after dark and randomly kills men with a .45 caliber gun.The director, Abel Ferrara, who would go on to make other genre films, with this one featuring a cast of people you likely never heard of performing just as well as "real" stars would.
This, more than anything else, really shows that the film was made in New York City, as anyone from outside the area will have no idea what it is.The name of Zoë Lund's character, Thana, is reminiscent of the Greek god of death, "Thanatos".
If you are interested in the RR genre don't watch any other film than this one because this one is actually the only one that portray the act of rape and the psychological trauma of it and the revenge of it in a fair way, without exploiting women to the degree that the movie itself become the sleazball that the men in the movie act like.
The fact that it came from the sick mind of a man tends to refute this claim, nor is it a rape revenge fantasy like the slightly earlier "I Spit On Your Grave" because murdering innocent people, even men, is not revenge but psychopathy.Our doomed angel is a young, attractive mute named Thana.
A film like Ms. 45 has the words "exploitation flick" written all over it; just look at the plot: a deaf woman named Thana comes home from work, is raped not once, but twice by two different attackers, and kills the second rapist with his own hand gun.
"Ms.45" easily has to be my favourite Abel Ferrara's flick.A fragile,pathologically shy New York City seamstress named Thana(Zoë Tamerlis)is brutally raped at gunpoint twice in one afternoon by two different assailants,first while walking home and the second in her own home.This time she kills her rapist and rather than report the crime to the authorities,decides to dispose of the body herself by dismembering the body.Meanwhile,she finds herself the new owner of his Star.45-calibre pistol,which she takes to kill for protection.Very intense,dark and gritty vigilante thriller obviously influenced by "I Spit on Your Grave" and "Death Wish" with virtually every male character being a two-dimensional predator.Zoë Tamerlis is perfect as a mute killing machine Thana-she is stunningly beautiful and deadly.10 out of 10.See it before you die!.
A rape revenge flick Ferrara style, which combines a twisted take on feminism drenched in catholic symbolism (a mute nun with lipstick, Madonna versus the whore), this certainly deserves its status as one of the most discussed exploitation films ever made.
For the urban nightmare atmosphere depicted here, finding such locations in 1981 Manhattan must have been somewhat less of an effort back then than in the orderly theme park it is now.Zoë Tamerlis (or Zoë Lund as she is sometimes credited) was only 17 years old when she played Thana, the mute garment worker who turns vigilante on the streets of New York after she is raped twice on the same day.
A young mute woman (Zoë Lund) goes on a rampage of murdering men in the streets of New York after being victim sexually assaulted twice in a matter of minutes.
Possibly not, but in its own context of subject matter, story, aesthetic and quasi indie production style, this could easily be seen as one of those rare gems that just seems to have that right mix for an eclectic film experience.The basic story is our lead character Thana, played by the astonishingly beautiful Zoe Lund, who works in a NYC garment district fashion sweat shop as her day job, and as part of that day job has to walk the daily gauntlet of leering and taunting male lowlifes, with the usual assortment of catcalls, "hey baby" one liners and all that.
that part of the film is genuinely painful to watch.At which point, Thana, who manages to get a gun from the 2nd rapist, who she dispatched to the next world during said rape, decides she has a mission in this world, and embarks upon such with steely determination.Of course, there have been numerous other films with this same basic story concept, Jodie Foster's "the Accused" perhaps being my favorite choice in this genre', but this particular production has it's own unique character which sets it apart from the others.Yes, there is some gore (well, a lot of gore), but it's not in your face raw meat scenes, more like implied gore as a consequence of what's being portrayed, with a few vignettes worth noting (serving the ground up remains of her 2nd rapist to the nosy neighbor's dog being a memorable example thereof).The entire aesthetic of this production is very 1980s NYC; grimy, gritty, attire, attitudes and settings of the time.In any case, I'd say this is definitely worth checking out.
The third film of exploitation-to-slightly-mainstream sensation Abel Ferrara ("Bad Lieutenant", "Body Snatchers"), "Ms. 45" is an explosive portrait of a serial killer, disguised as a luscious ode to the earlier, more substantial revenge flicks of the 1970s.Though it has Ferrara's greasy fingerprints smeared all over it, "Ms. 45" is Zoë Lund's show — an ethereal beauty with looks just as comparable to Lauren Bacall as they are to an alien women from a distant planet, Lund plays Thana, a mute seamstress who lives alone in a dumpy apartment on the bad side of town.
Thana's quest acts as a sort of metaphor for the crushing societal norm of male dominance, playing out like a potential scenario if women stopped taking unwanted come-ons and didn't let rape become an undiscussed taboo, thus avenging the wrongs done to them by a culture that accepts inequality.But this is only a passing analyzation, considering "Ms. 45" was made as a violent exercise in cinema, laced in sadomasochism, gritty street danger, and visual eroticism.
We are back to the seedy streets of late 1970s/early 1980s New York where lurking in every corner are rapists, muggers and assorted bad guys.Zoe Lund plays Thana, a mute seamstress in the garment district who gets raped twice in one day and slowly goes mad and goes hell bent on a revenge spree very much in the vein of Death Wish and The Exterminator.The plain looking Thana transforms to a more erotic looking vixen as she actively seeks out men to punish, hence why she is Ms .45 because of her gun.The climax of the movie is a fancy dress party where even men genuinely interested in Thana's well being are in danger as she loses all control.The version of the film I saw had been cleaned up for Blu Ray, although the grimy New York of the time only got cleaned up by subsequent Mayors of the city who realised the value of the tourist dollars.The film is rather raw, some of the acting is uneven.
A mute young girl is raped, in one of those mad exploitive strokes twice the same day, freaks out and goes on a killing spree around New York.
And it's all kept in a simple comic-book style, not as we know the term now but as it was meant before the movie craze and big dumb stuff like Tomb Raider, a quick sketch.The climax is astonishingly effective; it happens in a Halloween party so we can have this unusual fabric of disguised men and charged atmosphere, herself dressed as a sexy nun and just tears everything, slowing the time into epileptic strobe, heightening images, the most startling of those being a man dressed as a bride who as she kills, the veil and wig fall of his head and hang on a door, severing as it were the purer image from the taint.Ferrara would extend a few of these notions in his more ambitious Blackout, but this is probably better..
Abel Ferrara, in his directorial debut, doesn't embarrass himself with such patronizing idioms; he wants us to feel sorry for Thana, that's a fact, but to better be disconcerted by the alienation her blind quest for vengeance will lead her to.And this is the core of the film: the evolution of the central character, Thana, raped twice, in some horrific scenes, not necessarily because of graphic images –on that level, "Ms. 45" betrays its campy B-movie feel- but because of the outstanding capability of Zoe Lund to express the devastation of a soul raped along with the body, only by widening her eyes and her mouth ...
At first, it changes her perceptions of men as sexual predators and herself as a potential sexual prey, and then it strangely turns into a sort of Darwinian impulse where the smallest creature uses natural attributes in order to survive in a hostile world: New York City alienated by its own savage urbanism, reducing it to a modern jungle, literally.A few movies managed to reach that genius with the same thought-provoking approach, Cronenberg's "A History of Violence" did, but while it was about a man who was already the fittest to survive through violence, Ferrara's film is about a transformation process, almost physical when Thana learns about using her seductive power to attract men, like some insects use bright colors or disguise themselves as plants to attract their prey.
Looking like a schoolgirl (probably intentional) as she was reportedly only 17 when they made this film, and mute, Thana (Zoë Lund) is the perfect victim.
Ms. 45 (1981)*** (out of 4)Abel Ferrara's controversial story of the mute Thana (Zoe Tamerlis) who is raped one day when she's walking home.
These attacks set something off in Thana who soon hits the streets with a 45 and begins killing off men.The first time I watched this film I saw it simply as a female version of DEATH WISH.
However, the story of Thana (Zoe Tamerlis Lund), a mute textile worker in New York, is a far more complex and metaphysical narrative, seeping with Freudian symbolism, and highlighting the male/female divide within modern society.On the way home from work, Thana is dragged into an alleyway by an assailant (played by Ferrara) and ferociously raped.
After killing her second assailant with an iron, Thana takes possession of the man's .45 caliber gun and starts hitting the mean streets of New York on a mission to blow away every last sleazy no-count guy who crosses her lethal path.
Director Abel Ferrara (who also has a chilling cameo as the first rapist) and screenwriter Nicholas St. John take the familiar vigilante premise and completely turn it on its ear by cleverly undermining basic exploitation audience expectations: the rape scenes aren't that graphic, there's no nudity to speak of, and all the men featured in this film are hateful and disgusting jerks who regularly prey on women in one way or another (Thana's victims include a street gang, a slimy fashion photographer, an abusive pimp, and even a rich Arab who cruises for babes to pick up in his limo).
I know a lot of people have a soft-spot for this one...but looking at it in terms of what it is, and in comparison to other rape/revenge films, I personally found Ms. 45 a little lacking.The story is about a mute girl who is raped on her way home from work, and when she gets home, she is raped again by a burglar who had broken into her apartment before she got home.
At first she seems shocked but soon realises she likes the feeling and from then on stalks the streets of Manhattan killing men, in revenge.Widely known as Angel of Vengeance which is a much better title than MS.45 and directed by Abel Ferrara I think this is a brilliant film that I have seen many times.
The beautiful Zoe Tamerlis Lund plays a mute seamstress named Thana who is raped twice within the first ten minutes of the film.
She plays the title character, a woman who gets raped early on in the movie and from that moment on goes on revenge path against men and keeps shooting everybody who gets in front of her and slightly does not act like a perfect gentleman.