Gritty indie filmmaker Abel Ferrara made his theatrical debut with 1979’s serial murderer tale The Driller Killer. Two years later, Ferrara returned with his sophomore effort, 1981’s violent revenge thriller Ms. 45.

In New York City, Thana (Zoë Lund) works as a seamstress for a small clothing business. On one very bad day, she gets sexually assaulted multiple times.

A shy mute, these events send Thana into a state of shock that transforms her. Now Thana craves nothing more than revenge so she takes to the streets to shoot whichever men offend her.

Though I can’t claim extensive awareness of Ferrara’s filmography, I do know I didn’t think much of the projects I experienced to date. I know he enjoys a cult audience but I failed to take much pleasure from those movies.

Does Ms. 45 change that opinion? Not really, though it starts well, as the first act of the film proves intriguing and sets up the potential for a good psychodrama.

Ferrara certainly paints the men of NYC as pigs and gives Thana justification for her mental breakdown. The story starts in a vivid manner and seems like it’ll go somewhere powerful.

And then… it doesn’t. Most of Ms. 45 just devolves into a collection of violent scenes without much else involved.

Oh sure, we see Thana’s increasingly dire mental state. However, Ferrara can’t make this disintegration involving or compelling.

Some of the issue comes from the gimmicky choice to make Thana mute. The plot doesn’t really need this character decision and her inability to speak limits our understanding of the role and the manner in which the film develops her.

Because it really doesn’t. While we see an increasingly bonkers Thana, the movie fails to explore her psyche in any manner beyond the most superficial.

I can’t help but wonder if Ferrara went with the mute angle for Thana because he liked Lund’s looks but sensed her nearly total lack of acting talent. Her portrayal of Thana consists of wide-eyed shock and not much more.

The film desperately needs a more competent actor to cover Thana’s evolution. She goes from innocent young woman to traumatized rape survivor to violent avenging angel.

A good performer could pull off these shifts. Lund seems wholly overmatched and never makes Thana more than a cartoon.

Elsewhere on this disc, you’ll hear ample attempts to paint Ms. 45 as a strong feminist statement. While I agree Ferrara includes those themes, I don’t think he does so with sincerity.

Instead, Ferrara uses these concepts as cheap social commentary. Ferrara wants to pretend Ms. 45 offers something more substantial than basic revenge violence.

But it doesn’t, and the film’s occasional attempts at meaning and depth become inept. Specific discussion of these missteps would involve spoilers, so I won’t dig into details.

Let’s just say that Ferrara’s stabs at social commentary and feminist meaning feel forced and phony. He tacks them on in such a clumsy manner that they seem contrived.

Throw in a largely terrible supporting cast and too many unnecessary tangents and Ms. 45 winds up as a missed opportunity. After a good start, it rapidly turns into cheap exploitation fodder that can’t live up to its dreams of social significance.

Ms. 45 appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this 4K UHD Disc. Despite the film’s age and low-budget origins, this turned into a fine Dolby Vision presentation.

Overall sharpness worked well. Some softness crept into a few darker interiors, but the majority of the movie offered appealing accuracy.

No issues with jagged edges or moiré effects materialized, and I saw no edge haloes. Grain felt natural and the film lacked print flaws.

The palette went with a semi-desaturated sense of natural, albeit with some blue. The 4K represented the colors well, with a modest boost from HDR.

Blacks showed nice density, and shadows were clean. HDR added punch to whites and contrast. The movie looked better than expected.

As for the LPCM monaural soundtrack of Ms. 45, it felt perfectly adequate for its era. Speech sounded intelligible and clear, though the lines sometimes suffered from a somewhat boxy sound.

The movie’s score came across reasonably well. While the music lacked great range, it seemed clear enough.

The effects represented the source in a competent manner. These elements offered reasonable accuracy without great punch. All of this was good enough for an age-adjusted “B-“.

As we shift to extras, we open with an audio commentary from film scholar Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. She offers a running, screen-specific look at story, characters and themes, aspects of the “rape revenge” genre, cast and crew, some production elements and her view of the film.

Much of the track tends to focus on that last category, and in theory, this seems fine. Heller-Nicholas clearly thinks this becomes a terrific film so I looked forward to hearing her tell us what she thinks makes it amazing, especially because I don’t agree.

However, Heller-Nicholas too often tends to simply exclaim the movie’s alleged greatness without insight into why she feels that way. We do get some useful notes along the way, but too much of this commentary delivers praise without real explanation.

Under Interviews, we get three separate segments. These involve director Abel Ferrera (7:45), composer Joe Delia (10:06) and creative consultant Jack MacIntyre (10:32).

Ferrara gives us some basics about the film’s creation while Delia covers the flick’s music. McIntyre gets into his history with Ferrara and what he did on Ms. 45.

Ferrara offers a few insights but seems creepy via his comments about then-17-year-old Zoë Lund. At least Delia brings a good overview of his creative choices and MacIntyre provides useful nuts and bolts.

The Voice of Violence runs 18 minutes, 56 seconds. It provides notes from film critic BJ Colangelo.

The reel covers the film’s themes and interpretation. Though she provides a few minor insights, Colangelo gives Ferrara and the movie too much credit and her overly dramatic delivery of her notes grows annoying quickly.

Next comes Where the Dream Went to Die. During this 15-minute, 55-second piece, we hear from film critic Kat Ellinger.

“Die” examines the “American Dream” as well as the depiction of NYC in 1970s cinema, how Ms. 45 fits into that setting and some themes/interpretation. Though I think Ellinger over-intellectualizes this movie, she makes stronger points than most of her predecessors.

Two short films directed by Paul Rachman follow. We get 2004’s Zoë XO (6:21) and 2011’s Zoë Rising (5:55).

The late Lund’s husband, Rachman discusses their relationship in XO and Lund’s mother Barbara Lekberg reminisces about Lund’s youth in Rising. I could live without the artsy presentation of XO but Rising seems more straightforward and both give us a short but good look at Lund.

In addition to the film’s theatrical trailer, the disc wraps with an Image Gallery that includes 13 elements. We see ads, publicity shots and behind the scenes photos in this short collection.

A cheap exploitation thriller gussied up in feminist trappings, Ms. 45 doesn’t click. It wants to create social commentary but feels like little more than basic violent antics much of the time. The 4K UHD comes with very good picture, appropriate audio and a collection of bonus materials. Maybe someday I’ll find an Abel Ferrara movie that connects with me but Ms. 45 isn’t it.