Ato de Vingança

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.

When Linda (Jo Ann Harris) is beaten and raped by a jumpsuit-wearing, goalie-masked maniac (Hmmm, this villain seems familiar somehow), she goes to the police only to be further humiliated and infuriated.

If Linda hasn't suffered enough, her idiot boyfriend proves just how little he understands or cares about her situation.

Meanwhile, the rapist strikes again, along with his odd signature of forcing his victims to sing Jingle Bells (!!) during the attack.

Eventually, Linda's had enough. She gathers the other victims together and forms the group implied by the title. They set out to "take out the trash". With some recently-learned karate skills, Linda and company cause great bodily harm and massive property damage.

Oh no!

Goalie mask man is back, and he's not happy!

ACT OF VENGEANCE (RAPE SQUAD) is an average 1970's exploitation / thriller custom made for the drive-in crowd of its day.

BEST SCENE: Linda and her squad unleash their karate on a local pimp. Hilarious!...

This is an interesting movie. On one hand, it is a completely earnest. TV-movie style flick about a group of women who have all been victimized by the "Jingle Bell rapist" and ban together to fight against piggish male behavior in general and eventually take on their hockey-masked, Christmas-caroling assailant. Of course, the women are also sexy as hell, frequently undressed, and ALWAYS under-dressed, which supposedly compromises the feminist message. Why? I'd reckon 100 percent of heterosexual men like to see sexy, undressed women, while maybe 2 percent (a lot of whom are already in prison) really want to see ANY woman violently raped (and I'm not talking about one of those ridiculous Japanese "rape" scenarios here). So for 98 percent of men there is no contradiction here. Many present-day filmmakers feel they need bow down to the altar of man-hating "feminists" like Andrea Dworkin who conflate any expression of male heterosexuality with rape, but I thank god 70's filmmakers didn't. And as for female viewers, are they only allowed to relate to rape victims if they are unattractive, butch lesbians who dress like Lizzie Borden on a cold day?

There are some ridiculous scenes (I know I always meet with MY vigilante gang while sitting naked in a hot tub). The end where the gang goes to a deserted zoo to confront the "Jingle Bell rapist" without the one woman who knows karate is pretty dumb. But this movie is also much more believable than most rape-revenge films in that the women don't immediately and easily turn into remorseless fighting/killing machines. Nothing is less believable than the modern-day "butt-kicking babe" stereotype where a 105lb. fashion model takes on guys three times her size just because she knows karate (and, of course, these big guys never do).

The gang here is led by Joanne Harris, who played the young girl who successfully seduces Clint Eastwood in "The Beguiled". I've seen Filipino actress Jennifer Lee in various films. Perennial cheesecake actresses Connie Strickland and Anneka DiLorenzo were both in the similar (but more misogynistic) "The Centerfold Girls". This movie is basically a much more naked and violent version of "Charlie's Angels". But, hey, there's nothing wrong with that. . .

A rapist hidden behind hockey mask is on the loose.He forces his female victims to sing Jingle Bells during rape.A group of five women learn martial arts and team up to stop his dirty deeds."Act of Venegance" aka "The Rape Squad" has the special place in my heart,because it was along with Wes Craven's "Last House on the Left" the first rape and revenge flick I have ever seen.It's an odd and strangely unsettling thriller with sleaze and misogynistic violence.The script is lurid as it condemns the act of rape and sides with its victims but also presents those acts in an over-the-top and exploitative style.A must-see for exploitation fans.8 out of 10.