Al Adamson

A shabbily incoherent mess of a film that is still just about the best from the wild and wonderful trash catalogue of Al Adamson. The story by Budd Donnelly sees the young Mormon wife Jessica (Sondra Currie) being raped and left for dead, alongside her murdered husband, by a gang of grubby outlaws. Jessica manages to survive and ends up at the homestead of an old hermit who teaches her to shoot. She heads out for revenge and on the way meets up with a trio of big-busted women who join her revenge mission against the murderous rapists. Donnelly’s story is as crudely basic as Adamson’s sledgehammer direction and Gary Graver’s grainy cinematography. These three elements, however, combine to the give the picture an appropriately grime-filled and downbeat atmosphere. It could easily be argued that there is some feminist text in here, given the strong, capable Jessi and her female cohorts taking revenge on rapists and murderers. There’s cartoonish violence a-plenty and a decent (if unbelievable) climatic showdown sequence. On the other hand, there is joyless sex and the occasional flash of nudity in between the bouts of violence. Sondra Currie makes for a reasonably appealing, if unsmiling heroine, and is ably helped-out by the buxom Regina Carrol, Jennifer Bishop and Ellyn Stern. Rod Cameron also turns up with the most laughably false beard you’re ever likely to see. “Jessi’s Girls” is low-budget exploitation trash, but it is not wholly without merit and although it is one of Al Adamson’s lesser seen films, it may also be one of his best.… (mehr)