La squadra della morte

Mankillers (1987) is a movie that I recently watched on Tubi. The storyline follows a female CIA agent hired to train a group of jailed ladies with nothing to lose to accompany her to Colombia to take down a drug lord and his partner, who happens to be an ex-CIA agent himself.

This movie is written and directed by David A. Prior (Sledgehammer) and stars Edd Byrnes (Grease), Gail Fisher (Knightrider), Edy Williams (The Naked Kiss) and Thyais Walsh (The Gospel Truth).

This movie is really bad and doesn't even have any nudity to offset the limited budget, poor writing and painful acting. The females in this are well selected but under utilized. The training montage was classic 80s but poorly executed. The dialogue was awkward and didn't seem authentic and the action scenes are mediocre. The best part of the movie is the female introductions in jail, the one scene that was so bad it's good.

Overall, there's nothing to see here. I would score this a 3/10 and recommend skipping it.

My review was written in October 1987 after watching the movie on Sony video cassette.

"Mankillers", originally titled "Twelve Wild Women", is a chintzy version of "The Dirty Dozen" using women in the he-man roles. Pic is a direct-to-video time-killer.

Beautiful blonde Lynda Aldon is tapped by CIA bigwig Williams (Byron Clark) and his assistant Joan Hanson (Gail Fisher) to go after a renegade federal agent in Colombia who is wreaking havoc. Aldon used to work with the creep (William Zipp) and still dreams (or has nightmares) about him.

She insists on working with an all-girl team: "It's got to be women -women are more effective in the field", she declares. She picks up a dozen femmes out of prison and has Sgt. Roberts (Edy Williams) train them in combat. Several desultory reels later Zipp is zapped and the girls are engulfed by an unruly fog machine for an atmospheric (and inept) fadeout.

Pic essentially trades on the nostalgia value of its toplined cast, but Edd (Kookie) Byrnes, Gail "Mannix" Fisher and Edy (Cannes starlet) Williams are relegated to tiny roles. Alson is a forceful heroine but fans will be surprised , given the vast femme cast, that there is no nudity in the entire film. Action scenes are poor, with weak sound effects and mainly static setups. Riverside, California locations lack the necessary atmosphere.

I found this video on a carboot for 50p. The special effects must have cost little more than this, you can create better special effects at home using those those "rio snap" things from when i was a kid, you know the ones that you throw at the ground and they make a small bang. The girls are supposed to be like supermodels but don't even come close.

I love this film exactly for these reasons, it is pure low budget cheese! however it still beats higher budget films such as TAXI, the one based on crazy taxi with "queen latifa" which is the worst film i have ever seen in my life!!

If you ever see this film for sale on a carboot sale or market buy this film! It will bring you hours of enjoyment :)