In Fight For Your Life, a delightfully trashy and very un-PC piece of 70s exploitation littered with racist language, three vicious criminals on the lam (a 'honky', a 'spic' and a 'chink') hold a family of bible-thumping 'black-assed coons' hostage and submit them to a day of torture. Eventually, the 'jungle bunnies' get the upper hand, decide not to turn the other cheek, and smite down their oppressors. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, sayeth the good book.
In the UK, this now infamous movie was added to the Video Nasties list (where it has remained ever since); some nasty murders and a gang rape no doubt have something to do with that, but it is probably the film's endless array of racial slurs (see first paragraph for examples) delivered by bad-guy Jessie Lee Kane (William Sanderson) that keep this film from being released in 'good old Blighty'!
Of course, it is not the film that is racist, rather than the character portrayed within the film, but our moral defenders here in the UK rarely take the time to consider the facts, preferring to take no chances by stopping us from seeing such things altogether. Any sane person can see that the movie just uses racism to shock the audience (a great example of true exploitation). In fact, the black family who are victimised are presented as a morally upstanding bunch and are the 'heroes' of the film.
The film does suffer at times from some unnecessary and rather talky scenes, and Kane's verbal abuse becomes tiresome towards the end, but there are plenty of other moments that make this film worthwhile if you dig grindhouse cinema: a baby has a gun pointed at its head; a young boy has his head smashed in with a rock; a man is impaled on a huge shard of glass; and a woman is chased through some woods, her clothes come off, and she is pushed over a waterfall.
And when the family does get revenge, even the dog joins in by taking a leak on one of the criminals. Now that's entertainment!
In the UK, this now infamous movie was added to the Video Nasties list (where it has remained ever since); some nasty murders and a gang rape no doubt have something to do with that, but it is probably the film's endless array of racial slurs (see first paragraph for examples) delivered by bad-guy Jessie Lee Kane (William Sanderson) that keep this film from being released in 'good old Blighty'!
Of course, it is not the film that is racist, rather than the character portrayed within the film, but our moral defenders here in the UK rarely take the time to consider the facts, preferring to take no chances by stopping us from seeing such things altogether. Any sane person can see that the movie just uses racism to shock the audience (a great example of true exploitation). In fact, the black family who are victimised are presented as a morally upstanding bunch and are the 'heroes' of the film.
The film does suffer at times from some unnecessary and rather talky scenes, and Kane's verbal abuse becomes tiresome towards the end, but there are plenty of other moments that make this film worthwhile if you dig grindhouse cinema: a baby has a gun pointed at its head; a young boy has his head smashed in with a rock; a man is impaled on a huge shard of glass; and a woman is chased through some woods, her clothes come off, and she is pushed over a waterfall.
And when the family does get revenge, even the dog joins in by taking a leak on one of the criminals. Now that's entertainment!