DVD
Review | The Angel Collection Written by:Kage
Alan
A high school honor student during the day and
hooker by night? While that may have raised a few eyebrows back in
1984, I hardly think anybody would think twice about it today, not
with everything that’s going on in the world. Well, to a couple of
14-year-old boys, sneaking this film in when it aired on Cable TV was
something we bragged about to all our friends. It’s not that we
didn’t have parental supervision so much as we knew how to bypass the
cable box and hook it up onto the TV we were supposed to be playing
video games on. Damn we were good!
So, the first “Angel” had to do with the
aforementioned high school honor student (played by Donna Wilkes, “Days
of Our Lives”) who was abandoned a few years back by her mother and took
to the streets to make ends meet. These days they’d just go on a show
like Jerry Springer whereas back then they hit the pavement. I honestly
wonder which is worse. In any case, there’s a homicidal maniac out
there killing off the prostitutes, the cops can’t seem to find him and
some of Angel’s friends are targets. What’s a girl to do between exams
and tricks? Get her hands on a gun, grab some of the locals and go
hunting. It’s SO Linda Blair!
In “Avenging Angel”, Betsy Russell (“The Flunky”)
takes over the title role as a period of 4 years has passed and Angel is
graduating college with a degree in law. She’s still a knockout, only
she’s trying to lead a normal life. Unfortunately, when the police
detective who helped her during events of the first film is killed,
Angel is back on the street trying to bring the murderer to justice. To
do that, though, she’s going to need some help from her old friends.
Russell is put on display more for her looks than anything else and
while it doesn’t have the freshness of the first film, it’s a typical
exploitation sequel; mildly entertaining. At least we got to see actor
Rory Calhoun again.
“Angel III: The Final Chapter” has the best
tagline: “Angel spent years making men happy. Now it’s time to make
them pay.” Isn’t that a scream??? Mitzi Kapture (“Silk Stalkings”) is
Angel this time out as she has switched from law to photography. During
an art exhibit, she sees a woman who may just be her mother, so she
heads out to LA only to discover the woman who abandoned her and (gasp!)
a sister she never knew she had. The catch? Mom’s boss is Maud Adams
(“The Spy Who Loved Me”) and she (Maude) is running a slave trade with
Angel’s sister on the list to be shipped overseas. We can’t have that.
While “Angel” is oddly enough probably a classic
from the early 80s since nobody has done it quite like that since,
“Avenging Angel” was a so-so follow-up and while I expected “Angel III”
to be inferior even to that, the final film was actually very watchable.
Production values seemed higher and the acting was generally decent
considering the subject matter. Separating the films for individual
sale might not have done them much good, but having them together here
in one box is really the perfect way to have them.
Anchor Bay has released the “Angel” trilogy all in
Widescreen transfers (cheering loudly!). Picture quality gets
progressively better with each film as does audio quality. Still, I
remember the old cable broadcasts of the first film being grainy and
nasty and this is much, much better. As for extras, the first “Angel”
has some deleted scenes and trailers, “Avenging Angel” has trailers and
a “Poster and Still Gallery” while “Angel III” has only a trailer.
Maybe it’s not the most one might expect or hope for, but it’s a package
deal and it’s worth the money.
“Angel” and its two sequels may never win any
awards, but they represent some of the stranger things that came out of
the 80s that really do need to be preserved. The trilogy tried to put a
face on a different form of exploitation film and, for the most part,
entertained us instead. That’s not a bad thing, actually.
