Tuesday, October 31, 2017

THE LADIES CLUB (1986) ** ½


Karen Austin stars as a cop who is raped in her own home by a gang of thugs.  After her attackers get off scot free, she receives an outpouring of mail from rape survivors.  She decides to form a club with her doctor and invites the women into her home to talk about their experiences.  Before long, they decide to stop talking and do something about it.  Together, they go out at night targeting, drugging, and castrating known rapists. 

The Ladies Club is a solid exploitation picture that fuses revenge fantasy with social commentary.  It’s not always successful on either score, but you have to give it points for trying.  Things get off to a fine start though and the scenes of the women picking up rapists in bars and dropping them off to the doctor for low-rent castrations are often quite funny.  Despite that, it’s not nearly as nasty or as exploitative as it could have been.  In fact, given the subject matter, it’s ultimately kind of toothless.  With a few edits here and there, it could’ve easily played on Lifetime.  The ending is a bit pat too.   

The supporting cast is solid.  Diana Scarwid does a fine job as one of the ladies and Arliss Howard is pretty good as her concerned husband.  It’s Nicholas Worth who is the most memorable as a scumbag rapist who justly gets what’s coming to him. 

AKA:  The Violated.  AKA:  The Sisterhood.

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