DVD Release
The Exterminator (1980)
R1 / NTSC DVD
Tango Entertainment, Inc. / 2005
Director: James Glickenhaus
Writer: James Glickenhaus
Cast: Robert Ginty, Christopher George, Samantha Eggar & Steve James
Review by James Garfield
Vietnam vets John Eastland (Robert Ginty) and Michael Jefferson (Steve James), working as food packers in New York, encounter and defeat a group of gang members attempting to steal a shipment. The next day, the gang members ambush Jefferson, leaving him paralyzed with a broken neck. Eastland uses his old Army skills (and some of the weapons) to exact revenge on the gang. He then decides to procure money for Jefferson’s soon-to-be widow and children by threatening a local mobster with a dip into a meat grinder. Eastland decides to turn this course of action into a crusade against local violent criminals, whom politicians and police have been utterly useless in stopping. Police detective James Dalton (Christopher George) finds that the CIA want in on his investigation of the vigilante killings; Eastland has proved an embarrassment to the current administration and must be done away with.
The Exterminator has developed a cult reputation as the most vile and extreme of the urban vigilante films, and it delivers, even minus the usual rape scene. In addition to his little homage to The Corpse Grinders, Eastland dispatches a “chicken house” pimp with an impromptu Viking funeral (perhaps this is why the Trammps’s “Disco Inferno” was heard earlier on the soundtrack), and leaves other criminals tied up to be feasted upon by rats. The gruesomeness is justified with occasional flashbacks to the brutal opening Vietnam sequence, implying that Eastland has become deranged, and by the criminals he stalks and kills engaging in severe viciousness of their own, most notably when a john tortures a prostitute with a soldering iron. Any notion of social commentary that the film’s obvious forerunner Death Wish may have had is thrown away for gleeful gore and sleaze.
This DVD release is disappointing; it apparently gives us the uncut version of the film in widescreen, but has no extras, not even a “chapter selection” menu. There are occasional brief dropouts in the audio. As for the film, the extreme nature of many scenes makes it for grindhouse cinema fans only; mainstream action fans may have a little trouble with it. The cast of B-movie vets does a fine job, including 80s action-film sidekick Steve James in his first major role (unfortunately, as the archetypal Black Best Friend Who Gets Victimized So That the Hero Gets Really Steamed).
