Vengeance

Bob Blitz "Venegeance" is a triumph of raw and powerful low-budget film-making.Four masked robbers kidnap a middle-aged couple and their teenage daughter.The women are sexually assaulted and murdered and the owner of jewelry shop is killed during unsuccessful heist.The gunmen kidnap the daughter of a rich State senator and her friend Mark.The pair is kept hidden in the cabin.But Jenny and Mark manage to escape.The brutal siege in the woods begins...Nasty and uncompromising rape and revenge thriller that owes a lot to Wes Craven's "Last House on the Left".It's filled with ugly violence,rape and full-frontal nudity.The score adds a lot to the overall tension.A prize exploitation classic.9 out of 10-why not?

Four thugs hold a local jeweller to ransom. The wife and daughter are raped and murdered and then he is shot when the alarm is activated. Two have-a-go hero's get caught up in the cross fire and are subsequently kidnapped. The thugs cannot believe their luck when the girl turns out to be the senators grand daughter 'another ransom beckons'. However all does not go swimmingly and the plot turns into a game of cat & mouse.

Despite the poor acting and the extreme lack of budget, I really enjoyed this film and have watched it about four times.

Well worthy of a re-release although it may be trimmed for UK release.

This rare film tells the story of two students that meet in a laundry, of four ruthless criminals and the hapless family of a jewelry store owner. The gangsters take the family, two parents and a 16 year old daughter, hostage at their home and force the dad, who owns the store, to lead them to his jewelry. Things don't work out as planned, and in the end of the coup, the whole family is dead. As the thugs flee, the young students accidentally run into them and are taken hostage. Because the female young student is the grand daughter of a senator, they want to force the senator to pay a large ransom for the two students. But again, things don't go as easy as planned, and soon, the two students are fugitive and hunted by the bad guys.

Even though this production must have been very low budget, it belongs to the most interesting revenge movies that spread in the 1970s after the success of films like "Deliverance" or "Last House on the Left": The plot is quite unique and well executed. The villains are real bad guys, talking foul mouthed, love to act violent against their hostages and sexually harass their attractive young female prey. The movie's scene at the jewelry store's family's house is very unpleasant to watch, as the one thug who stays alone with the bound and gagged mother and daughter, violates the daughter and stabs the mother to death as she tries to protect her offspring. "Scream for Vengeance", the film's international title, also includes some gory shoot outs. Unfortunately, some of them are not perfectly executed, but still effectively done. One particular highlight boosts even a pitchfork murder that could come right out of a horror movie! But the best thing of the film is that whenever it could become too lengthy or talky, something happens. So it never becomes boring (like some other revenge movies do after the first outbreak of violence) and always keeps on going.

All in all, "Scream for Vengeance" is a much too rare, vicious little revenge film that shouldn't be missed by moviegoers that like this sub genre. Rating: 7 out of 10.

First of all, though this film is often given the 1980 date, this has to be the belated release date for a low budget film with a fairly long gestation for this is mid 70s pure and simple, from the slang expressions to the gay looking moustaches. This also means that the soundtrack is really listenable and apparently 'composed' by friends sitting around. All good and the film begins low key and basic enough in a laundrette and when the action kicks in it is bloody and very nasty, Mother and daughter tied up in adjoining chairs is a long and unsettling scene but about halfway through this simply gets lost in the woods. It must have seemed a good idea to use the wild landscape for the hunting and chasing of the 'good' and 'bad' pair but we loose interest pretty fast and its hard to see the logic any more so this just drifts away. Sad because I assume a lot of effort went into getting this made and then distributed. Nobody seems to have made anything else except for Walter Addison who didn't particularly impress here but went on to carve out quite a substantial career.

The first time I saw SCREAM FOR VENGEANCE was in the following year my dad bought our first VCR. The video club who owned the copy at the time gave us 1000$ of free rentals for an unlimited time. But in fact, they closed before we spent the half of credits. This film remains, after all these years, one of the goofiest picture I've ever seen. But it is probably the strongest example of what a perfect Z films blend should be. As a gory fruit cake, this picture is a divine mixture of past ordinary people fashions, fast cars chasing, kidnapping and rape scenes, self-defense and "involuntary" men and women slaughtering, bad dialogues... The most interesting element of the film is the soundtrack.An excellent(really) fusion/ rock performance of course played by musicians who were friends of the director or some actor(s). I'm not kidding at all, I strongly recommend to the persons owning the rights for this film not less than a double CD edition for the fourth coming DVD issue. To be honest, I really don't think it's gonna happen, even not for a poor single low-fir edition. The picture is still rare and,due to a very low-budget film making and distribution, This hallucinogenic "chef- d'oeuvre" of late seventies might stay unknown forever. Find a VHS copy is already a tough crusade. I keep dreaming...