Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
After being attacked and raped twice in one day, a timid, mute seamstress becomes a violent agent of revenge for wronged women.
Ms. 45 is a singular entry in the rape-revenge genre, distinguished by Abel Ferrara's raw, gritty New York City atmosphere and the iconic, largely wordless performance by Zoë Lund (then Tamerlis). The film transcends its exploitation roots through genuine stylistic ambition — the climactic Halloween massacre sequence is genuinely iconic cinema. Novelty earns a 4 for its unique feminist inversion of the vigilante formula and its unmistakable downtown NYC voice. The ending is memorably audacious and visually arresting. Plot is functional genre scaffolding, and the acting is solid but uneven outside the lead. Cinematography captures a grimy, menacing New York with effective low-budget craft, landing above average but not exceptional.