Ms. 45 (1981)

Director: Abel Ferrara
Writer(s): Nicholas St. John
Starring: Zoe Lund, Bogey, Albert Sinkys, and Darlene Stuto

VHS cover art courtesy of Retro-Daze

Hollywood is rife with stories of actors being consumed by the excess of a glamorous lifestyle, but very few are as genuinely heartbreaking as the story of Zoe Tamerlis, the beautiful lead actress of Abel Ferrara’s cult revenge thriller Ms. 45, who was only 17 years old at the time of filming. Three years later, she followed up her debut with an even bigger role in journeyman director Larry Cohen’s Special Effects, in which she played two leading parts. Even though she wanted to branch out from the shadow of Ferrara, determined to carve her own career path rather than merely latch on to his success, she returned to help him pen Bad Lieutenant, the infamous film that arguably put him on the map for good (after his normal writer, Nicholas St. John, refused to write it because of his devout Catholic beliefs). In between those last two projects, she married Robert Lund in 1986, a relationship that would technically last for the next thirteen years (though they were separated in 1997, neither filed for divorce).

If things sound like they were going well for her, they weren’t: she was a heroin addict. Now that’s nothing new in and of itself, but what makes her story so harrowing was her dedication to the drug: she was not just addicted to it, but came to believe it harnessed a power within her that otherwise could not be accessed. She went so far as to become an outspoken advocate of the drug, never once seeming to realize—or rather, maybe completely disregarding—the danger that her addiction was putting her in. She continued to write, finding inspiration from other junkies who met premature ends, such as model Gia Carangi, noted as one of the first “supermodels”, who spiraled into drug addiction before dying of AIDS at the age of 26; Lund was commissioned to write a screenplay based on Gia’s life, which would remain unfinished.

After separation from her husband in 1997, she moved to Paris, France, with a new boyfriend, only to succumb to heart and lung failure, exacerbated by her constant drug use, in April of 1999. Drug-related deaths are always sad, because many of them feel so preventable: if only people could have reached out to them, or made them see the error of their ways, we wouldn’t have been robbed of such talent so soon. What makes Lund's story so depressing is that her life felt like a linear story, one that was marching to an unavoidable, foregone conclusion. I cannot find any stories on how friends and family, specifically her husband, reacted to her heroin addiction—did they try to get her to quit, or did they just turn a blind eye and hope for the best?—but so strong was her faith in the illicit drug that none of that information even seems to matter. The limits of her talents (prior to becoming a writer, she was a brilliant composer/musician) would end there, never to be explored.

In Ms. 45, she plays Thana, a mute woman who is raped twice in the same day on her way home from work: once in a back alley (this rapist is played by Abel Ferrara), and then again at home, after unwittingly walking in on a burglar in the process of scouting out her home. She kills her second attacker in the act, by beating him to death with a tire iron, then becomes drawn to his gun, a Colt .45, which she takes with her wherever she goes. During the process of attempting to hide the body (she cuts the limbs off, puts each one in individual trash bags, then disperses them at random points throughout the city over the span of several days), she begins a transformation from timid seamstress, to full-on murderer of men.

To be fair, Ferrara’s New York paints every male as a leering, psychosexual predator, and gives her many chances to utilize her new weapon. Men catcall Thana (and her friends) at every turn, they follow her to give her back the bags that she's intentionally dropping, they proposition her for sex, and the list goes on and on. Sickened by their actions, and slowly going insane from her previous abuse, she kills her attackers with a lessening amount of hesitation, and in the process, becomes a kind of feminist superhero, ridding the streets of misogynistic trash one bullet at a time. At first, she seems to do it out of necessity (the first man she shoots is running at her and screaming, so when paired up with her recent traumas, it’s easy to believe she feels she is doing it out of self-defense), but soon she is encouraging men to approach her, wearing dresses and layering on the make-up, and taking an active part in luring them to their deaths.

Since she cannot speak, and doesn’t seem to have anyone close enough that she can confide in, she keeps her emotions bottled up inside, which eventually leads to a drop in her work quality. She assures her boss that it will get better, but it doesn’t; in what feels like a last-ditch effort to save her job, she agrees to go to an office-wide Halloween party with her boss, which leads to a violent but effective slow-motion finale where she completely snaps, and all the male partygoers become fair game.

Ms. 45 was critically reviled at the time of its release, largely dismissed by uncaring critics as irredeemable exploitation trash, but there’s plenty here that elevate it beyond the sleazy archetypes of that subgenre. Exhibit A is Lund's performance as Thana: removing her ability to speak gives her with a lot less to do, but she still manages to pull off a strong, and sometimes even emotionally-charged, performance. The sounds of her occasional (and barely audible) whimpers during the second assault are gut-wrenching, while the lingering scenes of her curling up after each of her assaults gives her all-too-human qualities that approach a realism missing from most exploitation films. Her facial expressions as she continues to deflect co-workers’ concerns also brilliantly convey a woman that is hiding much more pain than anyone should have to repress; this may not completely justify her transition into “avenging angel”, but it certainly gives us a good reason to understand it.

The film’s biggest misstep is the inclusion of Mrs. Nasone, the landlady of Thana’s apartment building who is always meddling in her affairs. The problem is, her intrusions are unconvincing and clearly serve only as a thin way to advance the plot. For example, in one meeting, Thana heads out of her apartment with a paper bag (that does happen to contain human remains, but that’s beside the point), and, without any provocation whatsoever, Mrs. Nasone aggressively inquires about what’s in the bag. In another, she inexplicably enters Thana’s apartment without any form of consent, leading her dog, Phil, to act suspicious around the bathtub and fridge. Her character might have been included for comedic effect, but she actually manages to be way more infuriating than humorous.

The film’s low budget is also an occasional hindrance, with a few bad performances and some weak special effects. The writing also seems to lose focus, such as a fairly early scene in which Thana sees someone reading a paper talking about one of her murders, but as the body count grows, and as she starts killing more and more people in public with a loud gun, there’s very little mention of her in the media. Likewise, there’s really no mention of police, until a couple make an appearance toward the end, after Mrs. Nasone calls them to report something weird that she saw after essentially breaking into Thana’s apartment. If the police and/or media aspects weren’t going to be fleshed out, why even include them at all? Completely removing them could have given the film an even stronger feeling of anarchy, while heightening the revenge fantasy components.

The climactic Halloween sequence, with its nightmarish, slow-motion soundtrack, ends things on a positive note. This is due, in no small part, to the finale of the scene, which shows a loyalty among Thana and her female “allies” that manages to be strangely, powerfully potent.

As feminism seems to be an ever-growing movement these days, with women continuing to be pushed around and playing second fiddle to their white male counterparts, it’s no wonder that this film has slowly earned a loyal cult fanbase. I would suspect such a following will only increase over the years; though it’s directed by a man, it still maintains a unique, empowering female viewpoint while also avoiding many of the sleazier aspects of typical “exploitation” films; the end result is a flawed, but ultimately gripping, revenge film that will sadly remain relevant far into the future.

RECAP: It’s flawed, and its low-budget sometimes does it no favors, but Ms. 45 is a gripping feminist revenge thriller that manages to avoid the usual trappings (and the general sleaziness) of similar exploitation films. Zoe Tamerlis/Lund is good as the mute seamstress Thana, who is raped twice in one day and begins a rather speedy descent into a man-hating feminist superhero, offing any man who makes a pass at her with a Colt .45 handgun. There isn’t much plot to speak of, and the whole formula does get a little old, with men approaching Thana (or, later, her enticing them to do so) and then her just as quickly dispatching them, but it works rather brilliantly as a feminist fantasy. Finale at a Halloween party ends everything on a brilliant note. Not surprisingly, it was reviled upon release, but is finally starting to get the attention it deserves; definitely worth a watch.

RATING: 7/10 

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