About this episode

Bill and Stephanie continue their discussion with J. Patrick Hanley on the film Ms. 45, focusing on its themes of female vengeance and its place in exploitation cinema.

Bill and Stephanie are joined once again by author and screenwriter J. Patrick Hanley for part two of their discussion of Abel Ferrara’s Ms. 45 (1981), the controversial cult classic revenge thriller starring Zoë Tamerlis Lund. This episode focuses on the film’s second and third acts as Thana evolves from a traumatized garment worker into one of the most infamous vigilante figures in 80s exploitation cinema. The conversation explores Thana’s origin story as a female vigilante, and how Ms. 45 fits within the rape-revenge subgenre alongside other landmark exploitation and horror films of the 1970s and 1980s. More than forty years after its release, Ms. 45 remains one of the most controversial and influential cult movies ever made, continuing to generate debate among horror fans, film historians, and critics about violence, gender, morality, and the enduring legacy of one of New York’s most notorious exploitation films.

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