Act of Vengeance (4½ Stars)

Amazon Friday #3

My recent Amazon Friday feature is worth it. When I logged into Amazon Prime today to watch this film there was a message that it would be leaving Amazon Prime in six days. I caught it just in time.

"Act of Vengeance" was released in 1974, and it's also known by other names. In the UK it's called "The Violator", and in Australia it was released as "Rape Squad". When it was released on DVD the name was changed to "Rape Squad" in America as well. That's actually a more appropriate title.

Linda Shoemaker is raped when she's leaving a horse stable late at night. It's not a typical rapist. With the exception of date rape, rapists usually pick a victim at random. This man says that he's been observing Linda for a long time, and he knows everything about her: her name, her address, her job and even her boyfriend's name. Notable is that the man is wearing an orange boiler suit and a white mask. He forces her to sing "Jingle Bells" before raping her.

He looks like he's modelled on the serial killers in films like "Halloween", except that it was made in 1974, years before the other films. Could it be the other way round, that "Act of Vengeance" inspired "Halloween"?

Linda goes to the police, and she's not happy with the line of questioning. The police officer wants to know if she'd been drinking or taking drugs, as well as other questions that made her sound like it was her own fault. The next day her boyfriend suggests that she was sleeping around and had called it rape to excuse herself. This treatment of rape victims was typical in 1974, but I'm sure it also happens today. It's the twisted male attitude that all women want to be raped.

The only thing in Linda's favour is that four other women have also been raped by the same man; the same orange suit, white mask, and they had to sing "Jingle Bells". The police now call this serial rapist Jingle Bells, but they have no clues who he is. Linda joins up with the other four women to form a group they call the Rape Squad. Their main aim is to find their attacker, but they also want to protect all woman from rape.

The women advertise their services for stopping rape. They visit a self defence class to train, but the teacher, a karate black belt called Tiny, tells them they'll need years of practise before they can fight rapists. She offers to join their squad, bringing the membership up to six.

The Rape Squad's first client is a woman who was raped, but her assailant, a respectable nightclub owner, was found innocent in court. Linda visits the club and visits the owner in his room, making it quite clear that she doesn't want sex. When he tries to force himself on her the other squad members, waiting nearby, burst into the room, rip off his clothes and tie him to the bed.

They pour a bottle of sulfuric acid onto his hard penis. At least, that's what he thinks it is. They've put the label on the bottle just to scare him. It's actually just a permanent blue ink that will mark him for life. He's left tied up when they leave, which will mean an embarrassing explanation to whoever finds him.

Their second client is a woman who's been receiving obscene phone calls. The women are more lenient with him. They just rip his clothes off and give him a warning.

But Jingle Bells has been watching them all this time. He's aware of their vigilante activities, and he wants to make the first move. He thinks that he's more than a match for them, as long as Tiny isn't with them. He waits until she's out of town at a karate tournament, and then he invites the other five women to meet him in a deserted zoo.

I enjoy this film, even though it has a camp style. I've always liked rape'n'revenge films. I like seeing men suffer when they've abused women. This film is better than other films in the same genre, because the rape scenes aren't very explicit. We know it's bad, but the details are skipped. "I spit on your grave", the best known rape'n'revenge film, spends so much screen time showing the rapes in vivid detail that I already felt sick before it came to the revenge.

Several film critics, including Roger Ebert, criticise the film because the women are inviting rape, or at least not doing enough to prevent it. I have the greatest respect for Roger Ebert. He's the film critic who inspired me to start my blog, but in this case he is totally on the wrong track. He takes offence to the fact that the women in the film never wear bras, and they are frequently wearing see-through blouses and mini-skirts. Roger, you should be ashamed of yourself! It doesn't matter how little women are wearing, they're never asking for it. If Roger Ebert were still alive today, I'd write to him and demand an apology.

The film is no longer available on DVD, so its removal from Amazon Prime is a sad loss.