One of the greatest films to emerge from the Grindhouse era was Abel Ferrara’s MS. 45 (1981). It’s not without flaws, but the good things are good enough that they overwhelm the not-so-good ones.
MS. 45 (1981) Trailer
Made for around $80,000 with much of the same cast and crew of Abel Ferrara’s previous feature THE DRILLER KILLER (1979), MS. 45 remains one of Ferrara’s most accomplished films. A large part of its effectiveness was due to the casting of 17-year-old Zoë Tamerlis (1962-1999) in the lead role. Unfortunately, Tamerlis (subsequently known as Zoë Lund) never fulfilled the promise she demonstrated in MS. 45, as her subsequent acting roles (in less auspicious films like SPECIAL EFFECTS and EXQUISITE CORPSES) didn’t measure up. She did, however, work with Ferrara again in BAD LIEUTENANT (1992), which Tamerlis/Lund co-scripted.
In MS. 45 she plays Thana, a mute NYC seamstress. Walking home one day, she’s raped by a scumbag (played by Ferrara), and then gets molested in her apartment, where another scumbag (Peter Yellen) has broken in. Here, though, the fed-up Thana manages to turn the tables, killing the man with an iron.
Over the following days Thana, whose mental equilibrium has been severely compromised, takes to stashing the dead man’s body parts throughout the city. She also embarks on a revenge spree, dressing provocatively and wandering the streets at night. In so doing she attracts the attention of numerous men she lures into her orbit and shoots with a .45 pistol, appropriated from the dismembered burglar (how and where Thana gets the many bullets she fires is left unexplained).
All these men are vile and annoying to varying degrees (so their deaths aren’t very troubling), not to mention stupid, with one of Thana’s victims saving her the trouble by shooting himself. It all comes to a head at a Halloween party held by her boss, in which Thana, costumed as a nun, really lets loose.
This film received a great deal of mainstream attention in its day, and tends to be lauded for its feminist convictions, but make no mistake: it’s very much a grindhouse product, unapologetically reveling in violence and seedy big city locations. The script (by Ferrara’s regular collaborator Nicholas St. John, with input from Tamerlis) is serviceable at best, and the proceedings often skirt dangerously close to unintended comedy (as in a Chinatown sojourn announced by a gong on the soundtrack and one of Thana’s victims attempting to defend himself with num-chuks), but the mix of urban grit and REPULSION-esque psychological horror proves quite potent. There’s even a jazzy saxophone riff on Bernard Hermann’s seminal screeching violins in PSYCHO.
The film reaches its apex in the Halloween party climax. It’s filmed largely in slow motion, which (intentionally or not) results in a flickering effect that actually enhances the sense of psychotic delirium pervading a scene that Ferrara’s major forebears Polanski and Scorsese would be hard-pressed to top.
Vital Statistics
MS. 45
Navaron Films
Director: Abel Ferrara
Producer: Rochelle Weisberg
Screenplay: Nicholas St. John
Cinematography: James Momèl
Editing: Christopher Andrews
Cast: Zoë Tamerlis, Bogey, Albert Sinkys, Darlene Stuto, Helen McGara, Nike Zachmanoglou, “Jimmy Laine” (Abel Ferrara), Peter Yellen, Editta Sherman, Vincent Gruppi, Stanley Timms, Faith Peters, Lawrence Zavaglia, Alex Jachno, Jack Thibeau, Jayne Kennedy