Linda Blair was at the height of her 80's trash exploitation fame when she starred in this delectably down and dirty grindhouse sleaze howler as Brenda, an over-aged high school "bad girl" senior who's the leader of the tough all-girl gang the Satins. Trouble rears its ugly head when the Satins run afoul of a brutish all-guy street gang called the Scars (led by pockmarked sneering Neanderthal Robert Dryer). These detestable no-count hoodlums not only viciously rape Brenda's innocent deaf mute sister Heather (a very cute and endearing Linnea Quigley),but also toss Brenda's pregnant best gal pal off a bridge to her death. Man, are these guys real nasty customers. But have no fear. After sitting in a bath tub topless and dragging on a cigarette while lost in deep thought, the spunky and resourceful Brenda decks herself out in a clingy skintight leather jumpsuit and breaks out both a crossbow and some bear traps with the specific intent of hunting down and killing the vile subhuman scum.

Director Danny Steinmann, who also blessed us with the criminally underrated early 80's psycho slasher gem "The Unseen" and the fifth "Friday the 13th" picture, really pours on the scorching sleaze with this choice chunk of 80's low-grade dreck. All the correct sensationally scuzzy elements are ripely abundant here: polished production values, a roaring rock score, plentiful graphic violence, profanity-ridden dialogue, a catfight, the expected gratuitous high school girls' gym locker room shower sequence, a harshly drawn-out, explicit and unflinching rape scene, and a generous sprinkling of bare female flesh (besides the luscious Linda and the adorable Linnea, the equally hot Rebecca Perle and Suzee Slater also show us their stuff). Moreover, we also get gleefully hammy overacting from a game cast (John Vernon in particular has himself a rip-snorting ball as the cranky, foul-mouthed high school principal). Overall, "Savage Streets" sizes up as a hugely enjoyable and satisfying serving of topflight tacky and raunchy 80's exploitation action revenge thriller junk.

An adult thriller with period charm, SAVAGE STREETS is, like CLASS OF 1984, one of those high school movies of the 1980s that mixes sleaze and ultra violence for a surprisingly explicit thrill-ride. Seen today it's an odd mix of depravity and high camp, as Linda Blair dresses in leather and hunts members of a criminal gang with her crossbow. Her performance is OTT to say the least, but then it fits a film which never goes for restraint. There's a nasty scene of gang rape straight out of a DEATH WISH movie, alongside the obligatory gratuitous nude scenes, the girl's locker room scene a notorious highlight; even Blair isn't spared. Why bother having a scene of quiet introspection when she's dressed, anyway? The revenge scenes take a long time to come, but until that point you get plenty of sassy dialogue, snarling villainy and John Vernon in a small but entertaining role as the principal.

I went alphabetically there, not saying I priorotize one over the other in any way shape or form. Though to be clear, girls are the good ones here. Even if they may not be considered pure I reckon (the way the talk and behave and all that),but that is for the morality police to decide and be furious about.

Furious is a good segway to the premise or rather inciting incident. The movie at least does not linger too long on the abuse and the fact the victim has no way to ... communicate what is being done to her is quite ingenious I guess. You can't be faint hearted or too easily offended though ... otherwise you'd have serious issues (not just with the nudity and the swearing but also the violence)! It's 80s trash to some degree, some will cherish it more than others, and some will loathe it quite a lot