Mankillers (1987) User Reviews

There's nothing to see here

[kevin_robbins · 3/10 · 15 September 2022]

Mankillers (1987) is a movie that I recently watched on Tubi. The storyline follows a female CIA agent hired to train a group of jailed ladies with nothing to lose to accompany her to Colombia to take down a drug lord and his partner, who happens to be an ex-CIA agent himself.

This movie is written and directed by David A. Prior (Sledgehammer) and stars Edd Byrnes (Grease), Gail Fisher (Knightrider), Edy Williams (The Naked Kiss) and Thyais Walsh (The Gospel Truth).

This movie is really bad and doesn't even have any nudity to offset the limited budget, poor writing and painful acting. The females in this are well selected but under utilized. The training montage was classic 80s but poorly executed. The dialogue was awkward and didn't seem authentic and the action scenes are mediocre. The best part of the movie is the female introductions in jail, the one scene that was so bad it's good.

Overall, there's nothing to see here. I would score this a 3/10 and recommend skipping it.

Mankillers

[BandSAboutMovies · 5/10 · 11 September 2023]

Shot back to back with Deadly Prey by director and writer David A. Prior, this was originally titled 12 Wild Women.

CIA agent Rachael McKenna (Lynda Aldon, The Wizard of Speed and Time) is hunting down a criminal who goes by John Mickland (William Zipp) who is into drugs, murder and white slavery. To get him, she goes to a prison and releases a dozen of the most dangerous women in there. So, you know, Hell Squad. Or The Dirty Dozen. There's a thin line between love and hate because McKenna and Mickland used to be in love before he left her for dead.

Why she thinks women would be better for her soldiers is never explained. But who cares? We get a training sequence with Edy Williams whipping these raw recruits into shape. The main girls are Maria Rosetti (Christine Lunde, Young Rebels, Edgar Allan Poe's The Masque of the Red Death), Terry Davis (Suzanne Tegmann, Terror In Beverly Hills), Roxanne Taylor (Marilyn Stafford), Vicki Thompson (Thyais Walsh), Christine Rollins (Bainbridge Scott, who is also in the similar Hell Squad and Prior's Death Chase) and Trish Daniels (Cyndi Domino). It just takes a day of boot camp - I mean, Williams is very motivating - and they're ready for war.

The end of this movie is one big battle and just about everyone dies. Including one gentleman who gets stabbed right in the dick. There are also grenades, so many guns that even the NRA may be like "Hey ladies, do we need so many weapons?" and Zipp taking ten full minutes to die.

I learned from this movie that all female prisoners are attractive and they all get to wear cutoffs in the big house. I think it's learnings like this that put me ahead of the average man on the street. Mankillers is the kind of movie I can't defend, the sort of film that's always on when my wife walks in, shakes her head and just looks at me like some kind of manchild. There's an endless fascination with women murdering horrible men with an arsenal of death spitting devices and try as I may to grow up and take my real world values into my movie watching mind, I can't. Shoot everyone. Stab everyone in the dick. Wear headbands. Make that hair high.

Female Dirty Dozen

[mrt1911 · 2/10 · 29 July 2023]

The plot is "The Dirty Dozen", plain and simple: Pull 12 prisoners lengthy prison terms or death sentence and train them for a suicide mission. Several scenes are adapted from a military environment to the civilian world but they are still roughly the same scene. Dirty Dozen scene: Franco attempts to escape by sneaking out through the wire, but stopped by fellow prisoners. The excuse is even the same: "she slipped on a bar of soap".

Anyway, the exaggerated acting and inappropriate battlefield equipment would do a Troma film proud. I'm still laughing that the women were sneaking around in heels!

I couldnt even finish watching it, it was that horrible...

Feel free to give this "girl power" entry a watch.

[tarbosh22000 · 6/10 · 5 April 2015]

John Mickland (Zipp) is one very bad dude. He's a drug runner, murderer, white slave trader/human trafficker, and will torture you with a chainsaw if he doesn't like you. So, with that information in hand, CIA agent Rachael McKenna (Aldon) begins the hunt for Mickland. With only the logic of "women are more effective in the field", she tells her superiors she needs a battalion of 12 women. She goes to the local prison and rounds up some babes, telling them if they help her on this dangerous mission, they will be freed. The women agree and begin an intense training regimen. When their training is cut short, the inexperienced women and their leader must face off against Mickland and his many minions with the odds stacked even further against them. Will they be the ultimate MANKILLERS? Find out today...

Once again, David Prior and AIP take a basic idea and draw it out to 90 minutes or so, with a rock-bottom budget, and manage to make it work. Sure, most of the plot, as it is, of Mankillers (AKA 12 Wild Women), is lifted from Hell Squad (1986), but no matter. The idea is now done up in true AIP style. People get shot. Cars get chased. Drug deals go wrong. People of both sexes have mullets. Of course, there's a training montage to a Steve McClintock song, in this case, a number called "Freedom". There's another memorable tune, "Stand Tuff" by Jimmy Hammer. You know it's the 80's because they spelled it "Tuff". Interestingly, Bainbridge Scott is in both Mankillers and Hell Squad. Coincidence? Speaking of the 80's, one of the major reasons to watch Mankillers is the hair, makeup, and outfits of the "12 Wild Women", though most of the time they're in some kind of quasi-military garb, though tarted up, of course. Technically it all counts as "sexploitation", supposedly, though there is no sex or nudity. The violence is all pretty equal opportunity: women get beat up and killed, but they also beat people up and kill them. William Zipp chews the scenery - the cheap, cheap scenery (we mean that lovingly) - to shreds as Mickland, the most "boo-hiss" baddie to come down the pike in a long time. AIP mainstays Fritz Matthews, Sean Holton and, naturally, Ted Prior all worked behind the scenes in various capacities, reinforcing the family-style vibe of AIP productions. Even when Ted isn't in the movie, he'll still help out.

So while the movie is most notable for its bevy of babes, it should be noted that it also contains one of the few roles of the great American hero Craig Alan - Commander himself. So if you can't get enough of that inimitable AIP style, feel free to give this "girl power" entry a watch.

Fun late night movie to watch

[war_cat2 · 8/10 · 1 November 2000]

Mankillers. The name itself should tell you to 'lighten up' and relax while you sit back on a late Friday or Saturday night to watch this one.

It's about a girl (McKenna) who is a former CIA agent that must put together and train a group of 10 women convicts. Their job is to find John Mickland and stop him (by any means necessary). Hence the name 'Mankillers'. Mickland has been up to no good in the form of kidnapping young girls and selling them to rich nogood individuals.

It's a cheesy movie that looks like a group of 10 to 15 friends got together to make. With that said, you will get plently of laughs from the lack of special effects, or the low budget stunts that are performed. There is one scene where some kidnapped girls are being kept in the man guarded camp. The camp itself is low budget defined. There are all these shacks constructed of 2 x 4's and sheet metal. But that all adds to the effect of a 'budget on a shoestring'. The movie has some classic scenes too. The head bad guy has a scene where he is interrogating another man (an infiltrator). He handcuffs the guy up to the ceiling and pulls out a chainsaw (like in Scarface) and yells at the guy. The authority in his voice and the way he delivers the dialog is classic. The scene ends *SPOILER* with the chainsaw being driven into the helpless victim and fades out as we hear his blood curtling screams. Classic.

The movie has some fairly cute girls in it, but there is no nudity that I recall. It's any 80's movie, so you get plently of the 80's outfits along with the 80's fluff chick hair.

All in all the movie is quite entertaining and is definitely worth renting. I found it at Blockbuster for many years but it might be hard to find nowadays in the year 2000. But it is worth the hunt.

Mankillers - A Must See!

[dan_miles_83 · 8/10 · 13 January 2005]

I found this video on a carboot for 50p. The special effects must have cost little more than this, you can create better special effects at home using those those "rio snap" things from when i was a kid, you know the ones that you throw at the ground and they make a small bang. The girls are supposed to be like supermodels but don't even come close.

I love this film exactly for these reasons, it is pure low budget cheese! however it still beats higher budget films such as TAXI, the one based on crazy taxi with "queen latifa" which is the worst film i have ever seen in my life!!

If you ever see this film for sale on a carboot sale or market buy this film! It will bring you hours of enjoyment :)

Tame gender switch on 'The Dirty Dozen'

[lor_ · 22 March 2023]

My review was written in October 1987 after watching the movie on Sony video cassette.

"Mankillers", originally titled "Twelve Wild Women", is a chintzy version of "The Dirty Dozen" using women in the he-man roles. Pic is a direct-to-video time-killer.

Beautiful blonde Lynda Aldon is tapped by CIA bigwig Williams (Byron Clark) and his assistant Joan Hanson (Gail Fisher) to go after a renegade federal agent in Colombia who is wreaking havoc. Aldon used to work with the creep (William Zipp) and still dreams (or has nightmares) about him.

She insists on working with an all-girl team: "It's got to be women -women are more effective in the field", she declares. She picks up a dozen femmes out of prison and has Sgt. Roberts (Edy Williams) train them in combat. Several desultory reels later Zipp is zapped and the girls are engulfed by an unruly fog machine for an atmospheric (and inept) fadeout.

Pic essentially trades on the nostalgia value of its toplined cast, but Edd (Kookie) Byrnes, Gail "Mannix" Fisher and Edy (Cannes starlet) Williams are relegated to tiny roles. Alson is a forceful heroine but fans will be surprised , given the vast femme cast, that there is no nudity in the entire film. Action scenes are poor, with weak sound effects and mainly static setups. Riverside, California locations lack the necessary atmosphere.

"Don't You Ever Touch Me Again!"...

[azathothpwiggins · 20 May 2021]

MANKILLERS is another of Director David A. Prior's gifts to humanity. The requisite synth-o-generic score prepares us for glory!

It seems that those eeevil drug lords are up to their old tricks once more. Business is good.

Uh oh!

Someone starts killing the drug dealers and taking their money and their drugs! This person's a human trafficker as well!

Enter Racheal McKenna (Lynda Aldon), who is called upon to go after this ne'er-do-well. She needs help, so, she springs a group of female convicts from prison to serve their country. Heir big hair, halter tops, and wily grins tell us that America is in good hands.

Racheal has to whip these women into shape, and hope there's enough hairspray, since these aren't the type of females who share! After proving her dominance, Racheal puts her recruits through boot camp in the required short-shorts. Grenade training is a true spectacle! Can Racheal get her squad ready in time to face-off with the aforementioned, eternally grimacing, ponytailed pig-man?

In no time, the bad guys are being shot and blown up like the no-good, nameless extras they are! You'll love the belching sounds these men make whenever they're hit!

EXTRA POINTS FOR: #1- One of the dead men starting to get back up! #2- The villain being hit in the heart with a .45 slug, only to brush it off like he's been hit by a cotton ball! #3- When the villain takes two more bullets to the leg and gut, and can still drive a car!

Let's all sing the theme song together, "Freeeedomm! Freeeedddommmm!". Anyone bring a kazoo?...