Lovely But Deadly

Lucinda Dooling plays high school babe Mary Ann 'Lovely' Lovitt, who takes revenge on the drug-dealing scuzz responsible for the death of her brother; however, the real star of this film is the boom mic, which makes quite a few appearances from the top of the frame throughout. Such is the shoddy nature of Lovely But Deadly, a cheap, poorly acted, clumsily directed but unintentionally funny revenge drama that features gratuitous female nudity, bad disco dancing, unconvincing karate, a cat fight/food fight, a couple of terrible musical numbers, death by steam, and a character who refers to himself as Captain Magic.

Thoroughly cheesy and horribly dated, the film is far from great, but its nasty early-'80s trappings and sheer ineptitude make it reasonably entertaining nonsense if in the right frame of mind. My favourite scene was Lucinda and her all-female karate pals training, their uniform a short zebra patterned tunic paired with black tights - practical and stylish! The film also features some characters with really silly names, including football stud Mantis, pathetic nerd Cricket, wannabe pop-star Javelin and brutish thug Gommorah.

Just about worth wasting your time with if you're after a trashy laugh. 5/10.

I fear that this was what passed for Hollywood trying to be 'feminist' in 1981, and while it was a step above Charlie's Angels in that, it missed the mark by a good bit.

The movie opens with an utter looser drowning himself in the ocean while high on drugs, and oh boy, are we lucky he didn't live long enough to breed a bunch of children as stupid and whiny-faced as he was; to me, this moment was most likely to win my applause. (please don't rescue him, I thought, pretty please?)

Then his sister goes on a revenge spree toward the drug dealers (as if tuna boy hadn't decided to and chosen to and hunted down dealers and spent his own money on drugs, but whatever, let's not blame him in any way). And she kicks ass, in a vaguely pretty sort of way. Some of the other actresses are exploited more by the director, but the lead remains dressed and serious throughout.

It all hangs together within the sphere of reality in this film, which bears no resemblance at all to the reality that you and I inhabit, or that we inhabited in 1981, but I suppose in these days of 50% of movies being about superpowers, I shouldn't be complaining about this level of unreality.

I almost want to give it a third star for the character name "Mantis Manajian," which is the most original thought the screenwriters had. The extra star I did give is because the lead and her kickboxing girlfriends can kick high. Good for them.

But it's a bad, bad film.

An all-white moralistic remake of "Coffy" (the 1973 Pam Grier blaxploitation classic), presenting karate-ing cheerleaders and highschool girls, evil drug dealers, a little catfight and lots of unintentional laughs. The opening credits of "Lovely But Deadly" are presented over a static shot of a high-school dance in 1981. The music, being performed and orchestrated in a 007-like style, sounds outdated, exaggerated and does not fit in the cheesy late 70s sets in the background. The sweet rotten smell of campiness instantly rushes in. "How low can they go?.../ How high can they fly?" - that's what the title song lyrics say and that's what you're starting to ask yourself. "Lovely But Deadly" is about a young lady named Mary Ann Lovett (an admittedly real cute brunette named Lucinda Dooling) and her friends just call her Lovely. In the beginning, her brother drowns in a ridiculously far fetched drug-related accident. Angry as hell, Lovely decides to stop drugs in her high school, starting with killing "Captain Magic," the only really likable character so far, who has some incredible dialogue before Lovely stuffs drugs down his throat and he dies. Dead too quick. The next bad guys will be treated to better visual effect: let's get some martial arts action into the movie. Well, Lovely and all the other girlie fighters have obviously been trained in the secret arts by just watching a half-minute-preview of some Hongkong flick. So we get to see sheer incredibly clumsy fight scenes. Well, after all "everybody was Kung Fu fighting" those days... Talking of music: There is also a Rock Band in the movie, because Lovely's cheesy boyfriend is the lead singer of a band of smartasses who, during a class and out of the blue, are performing (poorly dubbed) a truly "electrifying" love song. All in all, a genuine classic of poor white drive-in trash. Yet probably too bad to ever get some cult approach.

Several hours after watching "Lovely but Deadly" I'm still somewhat flabbergasted, and I cannot quite figure out what exactly I have been watching... This movie doesn't make any sense, but not in typical terms of idiotic plot or illogical narrative structure. It doesn't make sense in a way that my brains cannot process how misfit the lead characters and the high school setting are in relation to the plot.

"Lovely but Deadly" (although the VHS-copy I watched overwrites the original title with "Deadly Avenger" in a totally different style and font than the rest of the opening credits) deals with a tough girl who joins a high school to expose the drug-dealing network that caused her younger brother to die from an overdose. The synopsis sounds like normal exploitation material, but the execution is not. You'd expect for a rebellious ghetto-girl go undercover in a gritty ghetto-school and battle against vicious ghetto-thugs and corrupt coppers, but no sir! The girl is question is a cute and slender cheerleader - albeit with some serious Kung-Fu fighting skills -, the school is a traditional all-American and upright high school in a sunny Californian coastal community, and the thugs are average looking jocks, school paper journalists, musicians, and well-dressed prominent locals.

One could state the unusual cast of characters and settings are original surprise-aspects, but no. It feels unnatural and impossible. The film balances back and forth between being a mixture of "High School Musical", "Porky's", "Class of 1984", and a cheap James Bond rip-off. On the bright side, this flick is never boring (apart from the too many full-length songs) and features a few totally absurd highlights, including a catfight during a fancy house party, a speed boat chase that results in an (exaggeratedly massive) explosion, a quarterback who shameless says to a girl that she has to wait 15 minutes because he just had sex with another girl, spontaneous nudity from random and nameless cheerleaders, and a poor kid who gets steamed (!) to death. Familiar faces in the cast include Richard Herd and Irwin Keyes (in his usual role of brainless goon). "Lovely but Deadly" is not a good film, not nearly, but worth discovering for fans of unusual exploitation.

Lucinda Dooling portrays Mary Ann "Lovely" Lovett, an over-age High School student who uses her martial arts skills to battle the vicious drug ring responsible for the death of her younger brother. Although the film is ultra low budget, the fighting scenes amateurish and the acting non existent, this little film is a real find. Backed by an energetic "James Bond-like musical score, "Lovely" is powered by charm and enthusiasm. The cast of unknowns tries hard and the script is on occasion entertaining, if not witty. Although to be honest, a bigger confrontation between Lovely and the drug ring's mastermind at the very end would have really improved the final product.

Lucinda Dooling's acting mainly consists of grimacing at the camera, but shows enough presence that I was disappointed to find she has only made a handful of screen appearances.