Blood Games (1990)
"Don't fuck up this time - this is a war, not a game."
Wow, this one’s absurd. A travelling team of sexy baseball players hustle local rednecks, until they play against the wrong team of local rednecks and the run-of-the-mill objectification and harassment turns to wanton rape and murder. The local redneck kingpin won’t pay up when his team of bar garbage loses the game; thus, the girls’ manager/pimp goes after him with a pistol and then winds up getting stabbed by the kingpin’s son who is then squashed inside a dumpster. The kingpin vows revenge and it turns to Rambo: First Blood / Most Dangerous Game as the girls are on the run through woodlands chased by various inbred townies including cinematic drunk George Flower. Apparently there are no police in this county or they are all off duty and part of the roving rape squad.
For a T&A trashfest there’s some decent action, even some quasi-artful decisions (a fluttering butterfly contrasted with an arrow through the back - a collapsing gunshot victim in the setting sun), and it goes relatively quickly, despite the rather counterproductive actions of our heroines who seem to refuse to get to safety. There’s a whole mess of over-the-top misogyny, but it’s also directed by a woman (Tanya Rosenberg’s only credit on IMDB - I’m unconvinced it’s a real person) and the girls get some decent kills and those who survive seem to win the day so maybe it’s a minorly self-aware, tongue-in-cheek ode to its 70s exploitation brethren. Nonetheless, a rather painful watch in these more enlightened times, any times really.
