BLOOD GAMES (1990) ***

An all-girl team of sexy baseball players crush their male counterparts on the diamond.  When their coach welches on a bet, the girls’ coach (Ross Hagen) holds the guy at gunpoint until he coughs up the money.  The guys’ team finds out what happened and they retaliate by stabbing Ross. The violence escalates until the women kill the son of the crooked man who owns the town.  He then offers a bounty on their heads and the women are soon in a fight for their life.

Blood Games blazed the trail for female baseball movies.  By that I mean it came out two years before Penny Marshall’s A League of Their Own.  In fact, this flick features one of the worst games of baseball ever played on screen.  The budget was so low that they couldn’t even afford to play on a real ballfield.  Instead, they play in some field in the woods where the grass is knee high.  The girls also wear booty shorts, which I’m not really going to complain about, but man, it would be hell on their legs if they had to slide into home.  Another odd thing about their wardrobe:  No hats.  How do they expect to catch a fly ball without a visor to block the sun? 

The ladies also have their own tour bus, which raises the question:  Do they go across the country hustling baseball games?  Is such a thing even financially viable?  Maybe that’s why they couldn’t afford pants and hats for their uniforms. 

Luckily, the baseball stuff is quickly brushed aside in favor of the violent back-and-forth between the women and men.  The scenes of them stalking, fighting, and killing one another is a lot more convincing than the scenes of them playing ball.  I guess this was meant to be a literal war of the sexes.  Even if it isn’t entirely successful, there are still plenty of scenes that pack a punch. 

The movie is more effective in the first half when the crazed rednecks are attacking the women’s tour bus.  The scenes of the ladies being hunted in the woods play like First Blood, but with boobs and baseball bats.  While that sounds like it can’t miss, there’s way too much annoying slow motion in the second half.  I guess they had to get this thing up to 90 minutes somehow.  

Blood Games does have one standout sequence.  It comes when perennial drunk George “Buck” Flower sneaks into the ladies’ locker room.  The ensuing shower scene in a classic.  The bit where one of the girls uses a hair dryer to dry off her boobs is priceless.  

In short, Blood Games pretty much gives you everything you'd want from a female revenge picture.  

AKA:  Baseball Bimbos in Hillbilly Hell.