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Released by: Slasher // Video/Olive Films
Released on: September 13th, 2016.
Director: David A. Prior
Cast: Edd Byrnes, Gail Fisher, Edy Williams, Lynda Aldon, William Zipp, Gail Fisher
Year: 1987
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The Movie:
Mankillers is, for all intents and purposes, director David A. Prior's attempt to remake The Dirty Dozen using a female cast. While his take on the tried and true suicide mission motif lacks heavy hitters like Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson and Telly Savalas, it does feature cult actors like Edy Williams, Lynda Aldon and, yeah, Edd 'Kookie' Byrnes in prominent roles.
John Mickland (William Zipp, who will be familiar to fans of Prior's work as he was in Deadly Prey and a few other films made by the director) is a vicious cocaine dealer. He deals cocaine on the hood of his car out of suitcases and he kills people who get in his way. He's also got some sort of white slave trade thing going on. Mickland is not a nice man and he kills his enemies with a chainsaw! He and his small army of heavily armed goons are making life difficult for the C.I.A. and so they turn to one of their best, a former agent named Rachael McKenna (Lynda Aldon) for help. She agrees, but she wants to do it her way - by assembling a team of handpicked female prisoners, the deadliest of the deadly, that she can train in the art of combat. If these ladies are successful and pull off the mission, they'll be granted a pardon for their crimes and given their freedom in exchange for helping their country.
McKenna gets what she wants and before you know it she's gone to prison and handpicked her girls - Maria Rosetti (Christine Lunde), Terry Davis (Suzanne Tegmann), Roxanne Taylor (Marilyn Stafford), Vicki Thompson (Thyais Walsh), Christine Rollins (Bainbridge Scorr), Trish Daniels (Cyndi Domino) and a few others, all either locked away for murder or robbery or other felonies. After a quick day at boot camp (portrayed by a pretty great training montage set to a song called… 'FREEDOM'!), where they slide under things and shoot at paper targets of Mickland's face, they're ready for action.
With their training complete, they head out into the field, armed and dangerous, to track down and eliminate Mickland's minions, but after the first firefight, where two of their own are shot down in cold blood, McKenna's left wondering if they're tough enough to pull this off…
While in Hired To Kill we were given a reason why the team of crack commando's needed to be female, Prior doesn't need to be bothered with such things. We're told 'they're better in the field' and that's it. No character development, very little in the way of actual plotting, just eighty-five minutes big breasts, big hair and some kind of great low budget violence. There's lots of squibs used here, there are shoot outs in the forest, there are grenades going off and all the while our coiffed cuties are zipping around in short-shorts and tight fitting white tops. Surprisingly there's no real nudity here though, but it doesn't matter, Mankillers is still a fun way to kill an hour and a half in front of the TV.
Like a lot of Prior's movies, logic is frequently tossed out the window in favor of action. We get some action. A fair bit of it. It's not always well done but it is consistently well placed throughout the movie. It all builds up to a completely predictable but admittedly quite satisfying finale involving our heroine and a rocket launcher. Good stuff. There are some fun notables in the cast too - Zipp popped up in a bunch of other Prior movies as previously mentioned. Christine Lunde was cast opposite the great Frank Stallone in the 1989 version of The Masque Of Red Death, while Bainbridge Scott started in the similarly themed Hell Squad (also known as Commando Girls) and worked with Prior again on Death Chase in 1988, which also featured Cyndi Domino. Maybe more recognizable than the cast of Prior regulars are Edd Byrnes (yes, the fifties/sixties heart throb) and the late Gail Fisher who was in more TV shows than you can shake a stick at. If that weren't enough, Edy Williams (from Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls, Chained Heat and Hell Hole) plays a female sergeant who helps the girls with their training.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Mankillers arrives on Blu-ray from Slasher // Video in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 1.33.1 fullframe and sourced from the only existing elements - a tape master (and to be fair, they have been 100% upfront about this and also call it out on the packaging so there's no deception here). As such, this looks like the analogue presentation that it was taken from. Putting this on Blu-ray does allow for a healthy bit rate and as such, there are no compression artifacts but there are a few drop outs and a fairly noticeable tape glitch around the forty-nine minute mark. Colors are faded and contrast blooms in spots. Detail is what it is - the screen caps below will give you a pretty good indication of what to expect here. There's some occasionally blurring in motion and some jittering effects here and there but it's watchable enough and hey, at least the disc is cheaper and easier than trying to track down an old VHS release (the movie never hit disc before this release).
The only audio option on the disc is a DTS-HD 2.0 Mono Master Audio track presented in English with subtitles optional provided in English only. Audio quality is on par with the video quality in that it's quite limited by the source material. Dialogue is easy enough to understand ninety-nine percent of the time and the levels are typically fine, but expect some warble here and there and the occasional drop out.
Extras are slim, limited to trailer (that looks like a newly cut piece but which is quite fun), a still gallery (that repeats a few archival images and also incorporates stills from the transfer), static menus and chapter selection. Some of Slasher's past releases of Prior films have had commentary tracks included but as he passed away recently, obviously that wasn't possible this time around.
The Final Word:
Let's be honest, the presentation of Mankillers on this release leaves a lot to be desired. However, the movie is now back in print and perfectly affordable. And while the quality of the release is nothing to write home about, the movie itself is a pretty fun micro-budget knock off of The Dirty Dozen with all the screwy eighties flavor you could ask for.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
