Sudden Death (1985) Marvin Films/Action-Thriller RT: 90 minutes Rated R (violence, rape, language, nudity, sexual content) Director: Sig Shore Screenplay: Sig Shore Music: Arthur Baker Cinematography: Benjamin Davis Release date: September 13, 1985 (US) Cast: Denise Coward, Frank Runyeon, Jamie Tirelli, Robert Trumbull, Rebecca Holden, J. Kenneth Campbell, Joe Maruzzo, Arnie Mazer, Gary Majchrazak, Tony Jaffe, Doug McCoy, Steve Wise, Laura Gardner, Mischa Bogin, Tim Roselle, Barbara Friedman, Phil Soltanoff, Gerald Orange, Gary Auerbach, Ted Boulton, Ray Lamparelli, Jeff Carpenter, Tara Cavanaugh, Derek Davis. Box Office: $603,000 (US)
Rating: ***
Not to be confused with the JCVD actioner of the same name, the 1985 low-budget exploitationer Sudden Death concerns a female vigilante with a vendetta against all the rapists in NYC. I was sold on it the minute I saw the ad. The tagline refers to her as “The First Woman Vigilante” as if Sondra Locke’s character in Sudden Impact never existed. Or maybe the title is meant to evoke the fourth Dirty Harry movie? Either way, she is one pissed-off chick.
I was bummed that Sudden Death didn’t open in Philly-area theaters in fall ’85. I saw the ads for it in the New York Times and couldn’t wait to feast my eyes on it. It was right up Movie Guy 24/7’s alley, a trashy, violent B-movie starring actors I never heard of. Also, it would have been an ideal precursor for Death Wish 3, due in theaters later that fall (Nov. 1). Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. I didn’t see it until I rented it from West Coast Video the following summer. I watched it a few times on cable the year after that. Needless to say, I liked it. I just watched Sudden Death again for the first time in a very long time. I might have rewatched it sooner if I had a working VCR. Luckily, somebody uploaded it to YouTube, so I was able to revel in it in all its exploitational glory one more time.
Denise Coward (Miss Australia 1978) stars as Valarie Wells, a successful businesswoman whose life is upended after she gets into the wrong taxi, one stolen hours earlier by two lowlifes, Willie (Tirelli) and Raphael (Maruzzo). They proceed to beat and rape her before dumping her on the street. Things aren’t the same for her afterwards. She dumps her fiancee (Trumbull, Undercover Brother) after he tells her to forget about it one too many times. The police, represented by Det. Marty Lowery (Runyeon, Santa Barbara), aren’t able to do much due to the usual BS- i.e. too many criminals, not enough cops. Valarie does what any fed-up victim would do. She buys a gun and hits the streets in search of justice.
Dubbed “The Dum-Dum Killer” by the press for her preferred type of ammo, Valarie declares war on rapists by going out at night and letting herself be accosted only to blow the dirtbags away with her trusty gun loaded with hollow-point bullets. Sudden Death goes on like this for a while until it gets sidetracked by shifting focus to Lowery and his partner (Campbell, The Abyss) tailing the two rapists as they plan to rob a courier of bearer bonds he’s transporting for his boss. I don’t why the makers felt it necessary to add this unnecessary subplot instead of just letting the heroine continue her crusade unencumbered, but whatever.
Predictably, a romance develops between Valarie and Lowery as he works on bringing her rapists to justice the legal way. Here’s another area where Sudden Death blows it. He eventually figures out she’s The Dum-Dum Killer. You’d think that this discovery would put him in a real moral bind and it does…. for about ten seconds. Then he sleeps with her. Shouldn’t this have been more of a dramatic conflict given his profession? It probably would be if Sudden Death was the least bit concerned with reality which it’s clearly not. It just wants to thrill audiences with scenes of a crime victim fighting back against a system that can’t or won’t deal with criminals in a way that makes a difference. It’s a cynical worldview, but such is the nature of vigilante movies.
Let’s set aside all moral concerns and talk about what really counts. Sudden Death is a cool 80s exploitation movie. Written and directed by Sig Shore (The Return of Superfly), he kicks things off the right way with an awesome theme song by Bloodlines. It’s the kind of cheesy rock song you’d only hear in an 80s-era B-movie. You probably don’t know it, but you definitely know the synth-pop tune “A-E-I-O-U Sometimes Y” (covered here by Freeze) that plays over the climactic chase.
As is typical of movies of this type, the acting is pretty bad. Coward is beautiful, but she can’t act. She delivers a few monologues about being a rape victim that just don’t ring true. Same goes for her moment of truth when she realizes not ALL men are potential rapists. Her character, classy though she may be, isn’t particular intelligent. In a moment of supreme stupidity, she accepts a man’s offer to let her use the phone in his apartment. It leads to my favorite line in the whole movie. He makes an unwanted pass at Valarie. After a brief struggle, she gives in and tells him she likes “tender loving”. He replies, “You don’t know how long I’ve waited for you to say that.” Uh, we do. You met her five minutes ago, dumb ass! Runyeon fares a little better as Lowery, a decent guy that genuinely wants to help Valarie get justice.
But you know what? It doesn’t really matter, the acting that is. Who sees a movie like Sudden Death for the performances? It’s the action and violence that draws in audiences. In that respect, it’s pretty good. It has a few cool scenes like Valarie blowing away a cab driver that definitely belongs in a locked psycho ward. It’s a little slow-going between action scenes, but I don’t mind. I’m not going to lie. Sudden Death isn’t a well-made movie; it’s strictly B-level filmmaking. Although released to theaters, I suspect Shore intended it more for home video viewing. Whatever he had in mind, I like what he did very much. I like it better than the totally unrelated JCVD movie. I’ll take a female vigilante movie over the umpteenth Die Hard clone any day of the week and twice on Saturday nights.
