Abel Ferrara’s cult classic Ms. 45 being revived by Drafthouse Films

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Drafthouse Films, the film distribution arm of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, announced today their acquisition of North American rights to Abel Ferrara’s (Bad Lieutenant, King Of New York) 1981 revenge thriller classic MS. 45. The film follows a mute garment-district seamstress (Zoë Lund) who, after falling victim to multiple unspeakable assaults, ignites a one-woman homicidal rampage against New York City’s entire male population.

Now remastered in HD from the original negative materials, MS. 45 returns to theaters this December and debuts on DVD and Blu-ray uncut for the first time in North America.

In case you’ve never seen this nasty number, here’s the synopsis:

A young, voluptuous New York City woman is intensely shy and unable to speak. Her naive beauty provokes the aggressive attention of all men. One evening while walking home, she is assaulted at gunpoint and brutally raped by two thugs. Her enormous fears, which had driven her inward before, now push her to an outward course of action. After killing one of her assailants, she cuts his body into pieces and disposes of the parts, one by one, at various spots in Manhattan. She carries her dead assailant’s .45 automatic, initially for protection, but ultimately for unrelenting revenge against all males.

“One of the primary missions with Drafthouse Films is to build a selection of films which destroy the barriers between ‘art-house’ and ‘grindhouse,” says Creative Director Evan Husney, “and Abel Ferrara’s work embodies just that. Ms. 45 is one of those fringe ’80s films that has been somewhat marginalized as pure exploitation, so we are beyond thrilled to reintroduce it to a new audience of cinephiles.”