The best of the vigilante films kicked off by Death Wish back in the '70s, Ms. 45 puts a novel spin on the premise by turning its avenging gun-packer into a beautiful young mute woman cleaning up the streets of New York. Director Abel Ferrara, who went on to indie crime film glory with Bad Lieutenant and King of New York, displays an amazing command of the film medium in this, only his second legitimate film after the similarly themed Driller Killer (and both after his unorthodox debut).

Thana (the late Zoë Tamerlis, a.k.a. Zoë Lund, who co-wrote and also appeared in Bad Lieutenant), a diligent worker in New York's garment district, has the ultimate bad day. On the way home, she's brutally raped in an alleyway by a masked assailant played by Ferrara himself. When she returns back to her apartment, a burglar is waiting for her... and she's assaulted again. This time she kills her attacker with an iron, then packages up his dismembered body parts and drops them off at discreet locations across the city. While she does her best to keep a normal appearance in public, Thana's nights are consumed by her seductive prowls through the city streets which often result in men of varying walks of life winding up on the wrong end of a bullet. How long can her killing spree go on before the truth comes out?

As much a horror film as a traditional action yarn, Ms. 45 rises far above the standard B-move fare of its era. Ferrara perfectly captures the glossy yet scuzzy ambiance of the Big Apple, with broad daylight only thinly veiling the danger always lurking around every corner. The powerful Lund offers a compelling, almost entirely silent performance that serves as a kind of ignited evolution of Catherine Deneuve in Repulsion, while the supporting actors are all believably and appropriately cast. The film's real trump card is its vivid climax at a Halloween office party, which once seen is never forgotten, and regular Ferrara composer Joe Delia delivers one of his finest scores with multiple memorable themes.

Regularly available on home video since the mid-'80s on VHS, Ms. 45 turned up on laserdisc from Image Entertainment (which also featured the outstanding trailer) and VHS from FHE in the U.S. in a more graphic version than the R-rated one shown theatrically. That same version briefly turned up on tape by accident from Warner Bros. in the U.K. but was withdrawn and replaced with the authorized, edited one approved by the BBFC. In 2000, Image Entertainment released a flat letterboxed DVD that looked nice but came from the cut R-rated version. The complete cut first appeared on DVD in France from Aquarelle, running at PAL speed (77 minutes) and looking fine apart from a pink and lavender hue to the film that's in no other version. The two French-language extras are the featurettes "Auto-Defense: Autopsie d'un genre cinematographique" (19m3s) with Jean-Baptiste Thoret and "La sortie francaise du film" (10m38s) with Christophe Lemaire. In 2013, Drafthouse Films brought the film back into circulation (complete with a few repertory screenings) with separate Blu-ray and DVD options featuring the uncut version. The new master had some very obvious problems including weak black levels and a beige push to the colors (for some reason each release looks quite different!), with mediocre audio that sounds like it was pulled from a tape. Extras include a short but very colorful Ferrara interview (7m45s), a chat with Joe Delia (10m6s) about his score and collaborations with the filmmaker, and creative consultant Jack McIntyre (10m32s) about how the film evolved. A newly created trailer is also included, plus "Zoë XO" (6m23s) and "Zoë Rising" (6m1s), two short films by filmmaker Paul Rachman about his own relationship with the actress and how she was perceived and remembered by those who knew her. The disc also comes with a 32-page booklet with essays by Lund, Brad Stevens, and Kier-la Janisse. The film was later issued on Blu-ray in France in 2019, minus the two featurettes.

In 2025, Arrow Video revisited Ms. 45 as separate UHD and Blu-ray editions in the U.S. and U.K. featuring a new 4K restoration from the original 35mm camera negative, with greatly improved LPCM 1.0 English audio with optional English SDH subtitles. As expected, the HDR10-compatible Dolby Vision on the UHD makes it the best option if you're capable with the best black levels to date by a long shot and a more natural look to the outdoor scenes. As usual the color temperature is a bit different compared to its predecessors, particularly some blue accents to the background lighting in several scenes versus the lavender or yellow seen before. A new commentary by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas goes into her longstanding personal interest in rape-revenge movies, the labeling of exploitation films and which aspects could be considered feminist, her admiration for Ferrara's films including his often overlooked later ones, a theory that this could be considered a Lund film, and the gender politics involved in Thana's working class avenging character. Then "The Voice of Violence" (18m56s) a visual essay with B.J. Colangelo covering the Greek inspiration for Thana's name and ruminating on the depiction of the dangerous New York City in the film and our main character's place in it. In the last new extra, "Where Dreams Go to Die" (15m55s), Kat Ellinger examines the rapid collapse of the postwar American dream by the early '80s and a cinematic world in the '70s and early '80s roiled by social upheaval, as well as an analogy to the myth of Persephone. The Ferrara, Delia, and McIntyre interviews are ported over here along with the two Paul Rachman shorts, and the real trailer is also back at last along with a 14-image gallery. The limited edition comes with reversible sleeve options (with new art by Sister Hyde), a book with a new essay by Robert Lund, previously unseen photographs of Zoë, and archival essays by Janisse and Stevens.

ARROW VIDEO (UHD)

DRAFTHOUSE FILMS (Blu-ray)

AQUARELLE (DVD)

Reviewed on October 4, 2025