Sœur Vengeance

My review was written in July 1989 after watching the movie on South Gate Entertainment video cassette.

"Lady Avenger" is a direct-to-video release of an off-beat woman vigilante pic from director David DeCoteau, who's usually involved in fantasy projects.

Peggie Sanders, distinctively styled with shades and tight t-shirt, is the marauding lady who has escaped from prison and is after the L. A. gang that murdered her brother. Pic holds out genre promise of a "Colors" at outset but soon downplays the gang aspect as Sanders gradually finds out that her corrupt stepdad (Tony Josephs) and her best friend (DeCoteau regular Michelle Bauer) have dirty hands.

Besides Sanders' adept action performance, Bauer (billed her with her alternate moniker Michelle McClellan) is impressive in a character role that still finds excuses for sexploitation footage. Director's usual black humor is eschewed in favor of melodrama played straight.

LADY AVENGER starts off with a young man and his girlfriend who have been kidnapped and tortured by a group of faceless individuals. The man has his throat slit and the woman (who we later find out) has her eyes cut out. Cue cheesy 80s rock music (I love this stuff). Maggie, who is the deceased's sister, is in prison for drugs. She is allowed to leave for her brother's funeral with one of the prison guards to ensure she doesn't escape. Well, she does of course (otherwise there wouldn't be a movie!) and goes after the thugs who murdered her brother. She visits her brother's girlfriend Maria in the hospital to find out some information. Maria's mother is there and doesn't help Maggie much other than give her a headache. She blames Maggie and her brother's life of drugs for her daughter's disfigurement. Slowly, along with the aide of her boyfriend, Maggie manages to find out who slaughtered her brother and gets revenge...boy does she ever. Grenades, blow torches, baseball bats, and guns are her favorite arsenal of destruction. LADY AVENGER screams the 80s (my kind of film), features lots of bloody violence, Michele Bauer showing us the goods, and action to keep you entertained for much of the short 80+ running time. A few scenes drag on...but if you hang in there it's a pretty decent effort. Recommendable though my personal favorite DeCoteau film would be SORORITY BABES IN THE SLIMEBALL BOWL-O-RAMA, which is a cheese classic in itself.

Will Schmitz did not write Lady Avenger, the other writer should receive sole credit. I wrote a first draft, but it has nothing do do with the product as filmed. When I saw what had been done to my material, I decided not to write films I would have no say in the making of. Needlesss to say, I have not worked on many other films and, of the ones I have, I have at least had the opportunity to have my named removed. Thus it goes in such a business. Same old song, eh? There is not much money for the writer in the low-budget end of the film industry, so you have to have been as unwise and hungry for work as I was at the time to bother. I've stuck since to writing for hire or writing what I want, and it's saved me a lot of unnecessary grief.

Not as good as the cover promises. Kind of bland and forgettable really. Peggy Sanders looks good with a gun and Michelle Bauer looks great naked, but those are pretty much the only good points of this movie (OK, you can add the purely 80's song as well). The heroine uses a variety of weapons to carry out her vengeance - revolver, grenade, flame thrower, etc. - but there is not much thrill to it all, maybe because her targets seem fairly easy to take out, or maybe because the illogicality of certain scenes (such as her and her boyfriend walking out of a massive car crash almost completely unhurt, or the police leaving a hospitalized crime witness completely unprotected) prevents you from taking this very seriously. See if you can spot two famous lines stolen from "Blade Runner" and "Commando". (*1/2)

A typical B-movie action thriller, made right at the beginning of David DeCoteau's break-out career which had begun in pornography. This one was mainly shot on the cheap and on the streets, featuring a female-led revenge plot which begins with a brutal double slaying before moving into more familiar territory. Our heroine seems to have borrowed a few ideas from THE EXTERMINATOR and gradually works her way through a cruel street gang. The acting's not up to much, but there's at least one good car stunt, lots of cheese and plenty of violence, so it's not all bad.