Tenement

This is without a doubt director Roberta Findlay crowning achievement and one of the true essential of 1980's 'urban warfare' movies. This film is proudly a B-movie, wearing it's bloody blackened heart on it's gore drenched sleeve. And I truly wouldn't have it any other way. Featuring mostly unknowns although some would later find success in varying degrees, Karen Russell (from "Vice Academy" and "Hell High"), Dan Snow (Yup, old Ciger Face himself from the Toxic Avenger movies) and Paul Calderon, who would go on to do bit parts in many great movies. This is a nasty one, broom handles where they have NO right being, sadistic violence, and general depravity combine to make a potent concoction. I loved every second of it. And the theme song by 'The Kool Crew' is great.

Eye Candy: Corinne Château and Karen Russell get topless

My Grade: A-

DVD Extras: Commentary by Roberta Findlay; Interview with Findlay; Photo gallery; radio spot; Original Trailer; and Trailers for "Blood Sisters" (with nudity), "Blood Feast 2", "Duck the Carbine high massacre", and "New Barbarians"

If one were to crown Roberta Findlay's best film, I think TENEMENT would be it. A variation of "people trapped in the house" genre, TENEMENT takes place in a run down building, all in one day with Findlay keeping the tension going with on screen titles giving the time (and sometimes even the apartment levels). This helps as the gang ruthlessly tries to make its way up to the tenants.

The gang is, as most gangs in films were during this time period, cinematic-ally goofy. It is a multi-ethnic gang dressed to the hilt in chains and leather. Findlay admits on the DVD audio commentary that during filming she encountered many real gangs in the Bronx and subsequently found out that her vision of gangs "wasn't very realistic." Regardless, the cast, comprised of mostly unknown but professional actors, is very convincing. Both Sam (Joe Lynn) and Chaco (Enrique Sandino), the leaders of the good guys and bad guys respectively, are given very strong portrayals by the actors. An interesting bit of trivia, TENEMENT marks the film debut of Paul Calderon, a recognizable character actor who went on to be in a wide range of stuff from PULP FICTION to LAW & ORDER.

One of the multiple films in the mid-80s urban warfare genre, TENEMENT is perhaps the sleaziest of the bunch. Director Findlay goes for the throat in terms of the violence, featuring brutal rapes, stabbings, throat slicing, animal mayhem and castration. It created a cumulative effect so strong that the film was award an X rating by the MPAA (interestingly, so was the gang war epic DEATH WISH 3 at the time, but it was reversed on appeal).

Fed up with their basement serving as headquarters to a gang of violent, drug-taking street punks, the tenants of a run-down New York tenement building inform the police about their unwanted guests' stash of illegal narcotics and firearms; believing the gang to be safely behind bars, the delighted tenants hold a party to celebrate, but elation quickly turns to terror when they discover that the thugs have been released from jail and are looking for revenge.

Just a few seconds of the horribly dated rap theme-song for Tenement should be enough for most sane movie fans to switch off in abject horror, but those who stay the distance (the certifiably insane, lobotomy patients, obsessive fans of z-grade trash) will find that bad 80s music is possibly the least offensive thing about this film: schlock director Roberta Findlay packs her film to the rafters with scenes of mean-spirited violence and sleaze carefully designed to keep even the most twisted of movie degenerates drooling with glee, including several bloody stabbings, a pair of scissors in the face, a throat slashing, and a rape that ends with the old 'broom handle up the punani' routine.

Sadly, while a catalogue of assorted unsavoury acts like this would normally qualify a film as an unmissable exploitation treat in my book, Findlay's typically ham-fisted direction, unconvincing gore, and terrible performances from nearly all involved make this film a gruelling experience for all the wrong reasons. It's not often that a movie can feature so much atrocity, yet still be most memorable for its bad guys' (and gal's) terrible dress sense: sporting cropped vests (tastefully slashed), chains, black spandex, and a fetching range of studded leather apparel, they look like they've either spent the evening partying hard at an S&M club or just been to an audition for raunchy 80s dance troupe Hot Gossip.

Some IMDb reviewers have cited this as their favourite of Findlay's directorial work, although as far as I am concerned, choosing your favourite Roberta Findlay film is akin to choosing your favourite STD.

I first saw this in the 90s on a vhs. Revisited it recently. This exploitation film is loaded with awful acting, bad effects but it is violent, claustrophobic n very brutal (the rape scene). The less said bah Findlay's direction, the better. Basically it is a mix of Assault on Precinct 13 n Demons 2. A gang with their lol leather attire kills n assaults tenants of an isolated shabby building. With the telephone lines cut off n no help from the outside world, they r isolated n terrorised in their own building but they do hold their fort n tries to fight em off with terrible consequences. It has some brutal kills with over the top blood n cheesy effects. The hottie Corinne Chateau does show her boobs but in a miss n a blink situation. The names of characters r poppo, chaco, chula, monk, nines, etc.

This film has the entire tenant squeal on a drug dealing gang to the police, only for them to get out, and one by one, they go to each tenant in the floor, killing and torturing them in an ugly fashion, making their way up to the top floor tenants, as the tenants either run to the top, or just stay in their rooms, waiting for their inevitable deaths. You see some repulsive violence, as well as pure sadism that would make Abel Ferrara proud as it out-Abels Abel Ferrara films in capturing the down right seediness and the hopeless and the no way out living of being holed up in these poor buildings. With each new death, you just realize there is no way out for these poor souls, and that they are facing inescapable death. Very grim, especially being directed by a woman! The ending is very corny, which kind of shifts the mood of the most of the film, almost ends like a Monty Python skit, but ignoring the last 5 minutes, this is a ride into despair and hopelessness that you will soon not forget. Just down right ugly! You'll will NEVER want to rent a New York poor apartment house after seeing this film!