Switchblade Sisters (1975)

This week’s movie review is the 1975 classic girl gang flick, Switchblade Sisters.

 

This gem of an exploitation film was directed by Jack Hill (Coffy, Foxey Brown, Spider Baby) under the title The Jezebels and then changed to Switchblade Sisters because the film did poorly under the first title. It doesn’t matter what title you prefer, if you love exploitation films, then this movie is for you! It has everything you could want from an exploitation film: Girl on girl fights, “women in prison” elements, blaxploitation elements, Shakespeare, sex, switchblades, gunfights, cheesy 70’s music and not to mention some of the best bad acting ever. It also has a young Don Stark (Bob Pinciotti) from That 70’s Show!

The Silver Daggers is the male gang that runs a portion of town run by Dominic; the Dagger Debs are their girls, run by Lace. The plot begins with a normal day for the Dagger Debs: Taking care of a crooked repo man and ending up in a fight at the local burger joint. The Debs come across a girl who challenges them at the burger joint: Maggie. Maggie shows the Debs she can fight and as the cops come to arrest them all, Maggie ends up in juvenile hall with them. Once there, a fight with the female wardens creates a bond between Lace and Maggie. When the Debs get out of juvie, they decide to initiate Maggie by having her get a medallion from the rival men’s gang leader, affectionately called Crabs. The actor portraying Crabs does a perfect job of helping you laugh at him, with him, love him and hate him all at the same time.

Maggie returns with the medallion and is now a new member, gaining more interest from Dominic, making Lace jealous. Lace’s sidekick is a one-eyed tornado of instigation, affectionately named Patch. Patch never liked Maggie from the beginning and now that Dominic is giving Maggie more attention than Lace, she tries to sway Lace into getting rid of Maggie for good. They go through with their plan and of course, things go wrong and the film takes a new path and the girls break free from their male counterparts and become their own girl gang named, The Jezebels.

As usual, I don’t want to give away any more but the plot has a few more twists and turns that you should enjoy on your own, not to mention more of the great schlock you went into this movie expecting. All in all, this is one fun flick that will have you laughing at things that are funny as well as things that you may question yourself as to why you’re laughing at it. The characters in Switchblade Sisters seem very campy and one dimensional at first, but a little before the half-way mark, you end up liking them and sympathizing with them at times. The ending is over the top, but by this point, would you expect anything less? In my opinion, the movie itself serves as a great time capsule to mid 1970s pop culture, in the same way that Saturday Night Fever immortalized the disco era on film.

I highly recommend Switchblade Sisters!




5 Switchblades (Out of 5)

Check Out the Trailer Or Get Stabbed!

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