Savage Sisters (1974)

Studio: MGM
Theatrical Release: July 1974
DVD-R Release: March 27th, 2012
Rating: R
Directed by Eddie Romero
Review by Craig Sorensen



Obviously capitalizing on the success of the New World women-in-a-tropical-prison pictures, one would expect Savage Sister to be chock full of nudity and debauchery.  It’s not, surprisingly.  I was a little surprised honestly.  I mean, what’s the point?  Director Eddie Romero is not new to over the top violence and nudity (See the Blood Island films) and star Cheri Caffaro certainly doesn’t seem opposed to the idea of disrobing in front of a camera (see Ginger, The Abductors and Girls Are For Loving).  So, what gives?  It’s not like it wouldn’t get theater dates with the stronger footage.  It’s not like AIP would have turned their noses up at some boobie footage.  I don’t know.  This was shot in the Philippines so maybe it had something to do with the Marcos regime?

Despite the disappointed expectations, Savage Sisters is still a fun film, in a late night, drunken stupor kind of way.  Lacking in violence and sex, Romero focuses almost excessively on comedy.  Some of it works, some of it doesn’t.  But all the leads seem to be having a good time so even when a joke doesn’t work it’s easy to ignore.  It’s almost like a ‘dad joke’.  They almost always suck, but the delivery (and the fact that it’s your dad) always add a little bit.  The stand out performances here belong to Sid Haig (of course) and John Ashley.  Sid Haig plays a Mexican bandito (I think Haig has played about every ethnicity at this point) named Malavael.  It’s certainly not the most subtle performance.  Most of the time he spends the film screeching his lines in an awful Mexican accent.  But it’s ridiculous and fun.  Ashley plays W.P. Billingsley with another ridiculous (southern) accent.  Billingsly is the kind of sleazy, wheeling and dealing type of character that really gives Ashley a lot of scenery to chew.  Really, all the characters chew so much scenery in this that the catering budget must have been next to nothing.  But, out of all the ‘savage sisters’ only Gloria Hendry really make an impression unfortunately.  She gets all the best lines (‘Hands off or your hand is ham and I’m the slicer’) and best action (she castrates a man like the Three Stooges pull a tooth, by tying it to a doorknob and slamming the door).  I’ve never been a big fan of Cheri Caffaro.  She just doesn’t have a lot of screen presence I think.  She does a fine job here I guess, she just doesn’t stand out.  Rosanna Ortiz is pretty but again she just doesn’t have a lot of presence.  Also, Vic Diaz is in this and his belly and ass hang out of his costume.

MGM’s new manufactured-on-demand DVD-R of Savage Sisters looks great for a low budget Filipino action film from ’74.  It’s anamorphically enhanced at it’s original aspect ratio of 1.85:1.    Colors look good and flesh tones look correct (and sweaty).  There isn’t really any damage to speak of here either.  This is honestly much better than I was expecting it to look.  The only audio option is the original English mono.  It gets the job done with little fuss.  You also get the original trailer, which makes the film sound a lot more salacious than it actually is.