Ms. 45

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A young, voluptuous New York City woman is intensely shy and unable to speak. Her naive beauty provokes the aggressive attention of all men. One evening while walking home, she is assaulted at point and brutally raped by two thugs. Her enormous fears, which had driven her inward before, now push her to an outward course of action. After killing one of her assailants, she cuts his body into pieces and disposes of the parts, one by one, at various spots in Manhattan. She carries her dead assailant's .45 automatic, initially for protection, but ultimately for unrelenting revenge against all males. Men, keep your legs crossed for this frightfully erotic thriller that delves into the life of a nubile young maiden out for blood. .com ---- Abel Ferrara, the bad boy of American independent filmmaking, made his first splash with this violent twist on Death Wish and the revenge-vigilante genre. Nastassja Kinski look-alike Zoë Tamerlis Lund stars as a beautiful mute seamstress in New York's garment district, a shrinking violet who is brutally raped and assaulted not once but twice in the same day. After dispatching the second predator in an adrenaline-driven rush of panic, she pockets his hand and disposes of the body in small chunks. Tamerlis makes the most of her wordless role, her wide-eyed vulnerability hardening to a dead-eyed determination as she transforms from quivering victim to avenging dark angel, a one-woman vigilante force hunting pimps, perverts, os, and slimeballs and using herself as bait. Consider this Ferrara's Taxi Driver, a very different portrait of New York's mean streets. Though this -on-the-cheap production occasionally suffers from amateurish performances in supporting roles, Ferrara's impeccable eye for composition and bravura sense of editing create momentum that carries it through to its memorable Halloween party finale. Tamerlis is decked out in a nun's habit with a slash of lipstick across her face, a hand tucked in a garter, and a contract out on the entire male sex. It's a deliriously effective exploitation thriller that undercuts every expectation of the genre. Ferrara makes a cameo as the first attacker. Tamerlis later cowrote and costarred in Ferrara's most notorious production, Bad Lieutenant. --Sean Axmaker