Plot: A New York City career woman becomes a vigilante after being raped by two car thieves.
I have a soft spot for these old-school exploitation/vigilante movies from the 80’s; Sudden Death (no, not that one) is essentially a female Death Wish with our protagonist Valarie Wells (Denise Coward) getting brutally assaulted by two car thieves in a stolen taxi. Once Valarie is healed she realizes the police aren’t moving fast enough, so she begins to take justice into her own hands.
It’s similar to the Dirty Harry movie Sudden Impact with a female protagonist taking down the people who raped her, except this clearly has a lower budget, but is every bit as brutal.
She buys a gun and starts taking out potential rapists in thoroughly satisfying fashion. Sudden Death is one of those movies that looks like it cost $5, but the low budget give it that grittier almost documentary feel adding to the realism.
The performances are surprisingly strong and we root for Valarie all the way as she gives the street scum what they deserve.
It’s sleazy stuff and at times hard to watch due to the violence perpetrated on Valarie, but she gets her revenge making this a mostly well paced 90 minutes. There is a love story between Valarie and the cop investigating her case which feels a little tacked on and he actually looks more dodgy that the criminals he’s after.
In terms of action it’s mostly just people being shot with a final shoot-out meaning Valarie gets to punish the men responsible for her attack.
The music is very much of the time and mostly awful however, that main tune “Sudden Death” is a catchy little number that keeps going through my head.
Overall, Sudden Death is a hard hitting rape/revenge picture and won’t be for everyone, but if you enjoy watching low budget sleaze as much as I do then you’ll have a good time here.
