My review was written in October 1990 after watching the film on Monarch video cassette.
The colorful exploitation moniker "Dead Women in Lingerie" fronts for a social protest film about mistreated immigrant garment workers. Direct to video release will disappoint thrill seekers.
Filmmaker Erica Fox signals her intentions pretentiously with opening credit cards reminding the viewer about the 1987 immigration reform act tht allowed illegal aliens to register, while subjectintg employers to prosecution if they didn't follow the rules.
Akin to the "Pacific Heights" stretching of a tenant law technicality into thriller fodder, "Dead Women" is about a serial killer of Latino garment workers in L. A. Payoff has militant overtones: it turns out to be, no surprise, a sadistic Immigration & Naturalization Service agent blackmailing and preying on the defenseless women
Pic could have used more of the sleaze elements promised by its title, as Fox' construction is haphazard, notably in a bungled final reel jumpcut from a showdown at gunpoint to an off-camera car backfiring like a gunshot. Plot gimmick that the garment workers, who double as models, get to take home their fancy lingerie (so the killer can murder them in style) is ridiculous. Acting here by feisty heroine Maura Tierney (who looks like Linda Hamilton) and prime suspect (he's too obvious to be guilty), employer Jerry Orbach is okay. June Lockhart and Lyle Waggoner have guest shots as Tierney's improbable parents.
Heart-on-sleeve end credit dedicates this misfire to helmer's grandma, an immigrant New York garment worker.
