Blair Movies: Savage Streets, 1984.

I’ve been waiting to re-watch this one. We finally get to see Linda Blair where we should – not in prison, not getting lost in the woods before dying halfway through the film, no we get to see her looking like a mix between Suzie Quatro and Sandy at the end of Grease shooting punks with a crossbow. John Vernon makes an appearance as the principal and in one of her earlier [larger] roles is the queen herself Linnea Quigley as Mrs Blair’s deaf sister who gets things pretty bad. The director, Tom DiSimone also worked with Mrs Blair on Hell Night and had what I’m sure was the insane experience of directing Wendy O Williams (if you don’t know that name, you’re in for a treat – think the female precursor to GG Allin) in Reform School Girls.

Savage Streets is a revenge-film and it makes a lot of correct decisions that her other films don’t. Grotesque was a revenge film that had Mrs Blair get killed – this has her avenging the gang-rape of her deaf sister, Mrs Quigley. Chained Heat doesn’t give her any sort of sympathetic motivation – this has her showing genuine warmth and caring to her sister despite her bad-ass outward appearance. Hell Night fails to use her wardrobe to its fullest extent – she looks great in every scene here. All of her other films lack 80s aerobics scenes – this one doesn’t.

Anyways, the plot in a nut-shell is Mrs Blair is the head bitch in a gang of bad-ass teenagers that skip class to go smoke in the bathroom and they run afoul of a rival group of dudes that wear razor blade earrings so you know they’re certified 80s hoodlums. In the early stages of the film this gang rivalry is full of classic 80s pranks such as drinking and driving, mugging, attempted hit-and-run, coke-dealing, and grand theft auto. As the film progresses, these pranks escalate to gang-rape, fucking Donkey Kong tossing a pregnant girl off a bridge, crossbow to the neck, vehicular homicide, and immolation. But don’t worry, there’s a nice happy ending where the cops sort of just shrug their shoulders at the whole ordeal and everyone walks off into the sunset.

The pacing is quick – everything escalates as soon as it can which is a strength. This is not a slow burn, this is a constant volume battle of wild shit wherein the knob hits 11 pretty quickly and needs to go louder and louder and louder to complete. Characters are surprisingly complex or at least some of them are. One of the punks is a bit more sympathetic and Mrs Blair balances between being threatening and caring. I wish Mrs Quigley had more of a role, perhaps getting better and rolling up in a spandex catsuit at the end to help claim revenge but what do you can you do.

The head dude punk looks like a Cardassian (he’s just missing the clitoris on his forehead) so I’m going to count that as a Beast to go along with Blood and Breasts. At least I think. I have distinct memories of there being breasts in this film but the version I am currently watching lacks them – no doubt a censored copy. Keep this in mind. This is great 80s fun but I have to point out a weird little plot hole regarding Mrs Quigley. She communicates in sign language which suggests that she’s mute but she nearly gets hit by a car and the explanation is “she’s deaf you ass-holes” which makes sense – she cant hear the car squealing around the corner. This all tracks so far. You can be both deaf and mute. But Mrs Blair talks to her all the time and Mrs Quigley responds in ASL. Is this to suggest that she can read lips? Perhaps but that’s never really explained. Despite this discrepancy, I enjoy the film and the cute-Linda-Blair-o-meter is strong. If for nothing else other than the excellent 80s imagery of neon and ultra-consumerism this deserves a One Thumb Way Up Seal of Approval.