Linda Blair has a surprisingly great “I’m gonna kill you” face. She opens her eyes wide like Bela Lugosi while neon light glows against her poofy 80s hair. Next thing you know, she shoots somebody through the throat with an arrow. This is a classic 80s revenge movie, mean, bloody, exploitative and paced at a zip. Blair is in a teenage girl gang called The Satins, who seem to exist only to protect and support each other on the seediest streets of Hollywood. One night, they cross paths with The Scars, a predatory guy gang. The Scars almost run over Blair’s deaf mute little sister (Linnea Quigley, who looks like she’s in the eighth grade). The Satins respond later by stealing their car and trashing it. After that, the boys hit back by raping the little sister and putting her in the hospital. Now, Linda Blair’s got to put on her sleekest all-black outfit, get some knives, a crossbow and some bear traps and make things right.
Along the way, the girls hash out some of their drama in high school gym class, which means exercise scenes with plenty of jiggle, wiggle and ass-slapping, naked cat-fighting and the fleshy pan across the shower room that you could expect in 1980s. And is the soundtrack a cocaine haze of synthesizers, reverb and hot licks? You bet.
This was a troubled production that stopped and started, scrambled for financing in the middle of the shoot and went through two directors (Tom DeSimone, who directed Blair in Hell Night a few years earlier, quit early on and was replaced by Danny Steinmann). Amazingly, the film shows no sign of any of this. It’s remarkably tight and entertaining. Its hairspray holds up.