Act of Vengeance

After being brutally beaten and raped one night by a mysterious man wearing a hockey mask "Linda" (Jo Ann Harris) learn that there have been four other women who have had to endure the same kind of treatment by this same person. He then rapes another woman named "Karen" (Lisa Moore) not long afterward. Much to their surprise they soon come to the realization that the limited information they can give to the local police is insufficient to identify their assailant--let alone allow law enforcement to make an arrest. So with few other options left to them they decide to form a "rape squad" in an effort to build awareness of this issue. At the same time, they also secretly decide to aggressively pursue and punish those who have committed these vicious acts but have somehow managed to escape conviction. Unfortunately, while they all of this is taking place they soon discover that the lunatic responsible has not only continued his acts of depravity but subsequently kills one of his victims in the process. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was an okay film for the most part which suffers somewhat from the rather dated script and weak acting. It does, however, benefit from the presence of some cute actresses--in particular Connie Strickland (as "Teresa") and the aforementioned Jo Ann Harris. Again, while not exactly a blockbuster by any means, the movie itself wasn't that bad overall and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Average.

With a totally clueless police force unable to catch a serial rapist, five victims decide on a vigilante solution. Their "rape squad" takes on the hockey masked perpetrator and any other men behaving badly. All the men in "Act of Vengeance" are portrayed as insensitive creeps, including cops, hustlers, pimps, and even boyfriends. While the middle part of the film deals with these various male annoyances, the conclusion in an abandoned zoo, is totally about the "jingle bell rapist". The films greatest weakness, besides some marginal acting, is that very little is revealed about the orange clad hockey man. In the end however, it is what it is, an above average female revenge flick. - MERK

This film is most notorious for the portrayal of its rapist. He wears a janitor-like jumpsuit like Michael Meyers in Halloween (except it's bright orange) and wears a hockey mask like Jason in Friday the 13th 3-9. Did this nasty little flick influence both of those horror classics? The most bizarre part is that the rapist makes his victims sing Jingle Bells as they are raped. The actresses play their parts well considering the material, but I would have preferred to see more scenes of the women turning the table on male scum like when they beat up a pimp. Not recommended for first dates.

This movie is pathetic. An anti-rape film that wants to have it both ways by being exploitive too. The men are portrayed as insensitive buffoons and the victims are self-pitying, careless, indecisive, vindictive and stupid. The gratuitous nudity is another issue that I have with this piece of junk. And the ending in which I guess is suppose to have the audience cheering just seem ridiculous (as I'm sure it did back in '74). A previous reviewer refered to this movie as I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE-lite. ISOYG didn't try to hide the fact that it's trash. This one tries to have it's cake and eat it too.

I thought this movie would be a good movie to watch. It has a couple of my favorite actors in Jo Ann Harris and Peter Brown, and I liked the idea behind the movie - rape victims getting together and trying to capture their rapist. However, I believe the film concentrates too much on the Rape Scenes, showing the Rapes once or twice would have been more than enough. And I absolutely hated them using Jingle Bells during the Rape Scenes.

This movie could have been made as a made for TV movie without the nudity and I think most people would have called it an OK movie. For me, there is way too much nudity and the acting is not very good. You get no idea why this guy is raping these women and that would be fine if the movie did not spend a considerable amount of time with him on the screen committing these attacks. For me this movie was OK, but not great.