One of the wildest girl gang films ever made and a weirdly haunting update of Othello for the drive-ins. It’s a comedy, but with moments that are dead serious. At the center of its story of jealousy, betrayal, and knife fights is Maggie (Joanne Nail), the new girl in the gang. She joins up when she becomes friends with their leader, Lace (Robbie Lee), after fending off lesbian guards together in juvie jail. Shortly after they get out, Lace’s dumbbell boyfriend (Asher Brauner) rapes Maggie, BUT some liar tells Lace that Maggie was trying to steal him from her and then the fur starts flying.
File this under the feminist branch of exploitation films. ALL of the most likable characters here are strong, independent women who can fend for themselves in a violent world. The one woman (Lace) who is attached to a man is also the most unstable and even then her boyfriend is a monumental cretin who’s clearly not good enough for her.
Directed by Jack Hill. The original title was The Jezebels, but the film bombed nearly everywhere it played so the producers changed the name to Switchblade Sisters… and it continued to bomb. It would slip into obscurity until the late 90s when huge fan Quentin Tarantino revived it on his Rolling Thunder imprint and got it into arthouse theaters and on the midnight movie circuit.