"She was abused and violated. It will never happen again!"
— Tagline
A 1981 movie directed by Abel Ferrara that tells the story of a mute seamstress, Thana (Zoë Lund), who is brutally raped twice in one day and snaps. She goes on a killing spree in New York City; shooting any man she encounters with a .45 caliber pistol.
This film has the examples of:
- All Men Are Perverts: Virtually every male in this movie tries to come on to Thana or her co-workers. At least, that we see through her eyes.
- Between My Legs: Used on the poster. It depicts one of the White Gangbangers cowering, framed between Thana's stocking-clad legs.
- Blood-Splattered Wedding Dress: The last man Thana shoots at the Halloween party is dressed as a bride, and he slumps to the ground with blood all over his dress.
- Bottomless Magazines: Thana never reloads, never purchases additional bullets after taking the gun from the second rapist, and never runs out of ammunition.
- Cute and Psycho: Thana is a Cute Mute who becomes a Spree Killer after being raped.
- Cute Mute: Thana is very cute in a Girl Next Door kind of way, and also mute. When she glams herself to go trolling for men, she is absolutely stunning.
- Dark Action Girl: Thana. After the assaults, Thana becomes a crack shot with her stolen gun.
- Disposing of a Body: After she kills the second man who rapes her, Thana first stows his body in her tub, then cuts it up before taking pieces away inside bags to drop off elsewhere at different places.
- Does Not Like Men: Thana. Understandable, since she was raped twice by men.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Thana is a Villain Protagonist variation. After being raped twice, she goes from a reserved, mute seamestress to a violent vigilante with a body count in the double digits.
- Groin Attack: Thana shoots the sheik in the groin in the back of his limo.
- He Who Fights Monsters: After Thana gets raped twice, she kills her second rapist after the first one ran away and never to be seen again. She then goes out and starts killing creepy men who approach her and then she starts killing men who are guilty for just being male and doesn't care if they're innocent or not. Even she even goes as far as killing a male dog and then it's revealed at the very end of the film that she let the dog live.
- Insane Equals Violent: After she's raped twice in the same day, Thana understandably has a mental breakdown, first killing men she finds threatening, later just men period.
- Karma Houdini: Thana's first rapist is never caught.
- Kick the Dog: Literally - Thana mistreats her landlady's dog quite badly.
- Madness Makeover: An odd example. Thana becomes more glamorous and well-dressed as her sanity slips away.
- Meaningful Name: "Thana", the name of the Villain Protagonist, is derived from the name for the Greek god of Death, "Thanatos". Thanatos can also refer to the term coined by Sigmund Freud, which refers to death instinct in humans.
- Mister Muffykins: Thana's landlady owns an annoying pug named Phil, who barks incessantly and keeps threatening to uncover the corpse Thana has concealed in her apartment. Than ultimately takes Phil for a walk, planning to kill him. However, she ultimately unable to do so.
- Menacing Mask: Thana's first rapist wears a masculine version of a transparent mask that just covers his upper face.
- Model Scam: A photographer attempts to lure Thana up to his studio by offering to take some shots of her. Once there, Thana takes some shots at him, and doesn't miss.
- Mugging the Monster: A group of White Gangbangers isolate Thana in the park and start circling menacingly around her. This ends badly for them.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: The film does not excuse Thana's actions, but it does show that they were the result of evil done to her.
- Pet the Dog The only person she hesitates to kill is the divorced salesman. Rather than stalk and hunt him like she does with her other victims. She actually lets him vent his entire sob story, only pulling her gun when he admits to strangling his ex's cat. Even after he turns the gun on himself, she doesn't encourage him one way or the other.
- Pimp Duds: One of the men Thana shoots is a pimp who is slapping around one of his girls. He is dressed in a luxurious coat, a white scarf and a wide-brimmed hat.
- Protagonist Journey to Villain: Thana begins the film as a sympathetic rape victim, but her breakdown and hatred causes her to become sexist.
- Professionals Do It on Desks: The women in Thana's workplace are treated to the spectacle of a boss and one of his employees having sex on the desk in his office across the street.
- Rape and Revenge: Thana is raped twice in one day, and because of this begins a killing spree against men who are threatening to her in some way, then just any man period.
- Rape as Drama: Thana is raped first by a masker assailant who pulls her into an alley, then a burglar whom she finds in her apartment upon returning home.
- Rape Leads to Insanity: After being raped twice in one day, Thana goes off the deep end and starts killing any man she considers sexually aggressive towards her, and finally just any man.
- Revenge Against Men: The film is a Rape and Revenge story about Thana, a mute woman who becomes a Spree Killer after she is raped twice in one day when going home from work. However, she slowly loses her mind and increasingly targets men who have done nothing wrong - by the end, she's simply killing any man she sees.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: A mute woman goes on one of these rampages after being brutally raped twice. Thana ultimately loses herself, starting to target innocent men, and is ultimately killed.
- Sanity Slippage: At first, Thana only kills men who attempt to take advantage of her. Later, as she loses more of her sanity, she kills any man unlucky enough to be near her.
- The Speechless: Thana. Although she screams when she is stabbed in the back by Laurie. And her only word is "sister", before she falls down dead.
- Spree Killer: Thana becomes when she goes completely off the deep end; gunning down any man she encounters.
- Through the Eyes of Madness: Much of the film has a dreamlike quality, and it is not clear how many of the events after the rape scenes are real, and how many are the result of Thana's Sanity Slippage.
- Unreliable Narrator: It's not clear how much of what we see after the rape scenes is real and how much is filtered through Thana's mental collapse.
- Villain Protagonist: As sympathetic as she may be, Thana is still a mass murderer, and many of her victims are guilty of no more than being slightly obnoxious to her. By the end of the film, they are guilty only of being male.
- White Gangbangers: A multiracial gang attempts to attack Thana in the park. This ends badly for them.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Considering the traumatic ordeal that she's forced to endure, can you really blame Thana for having snapped?
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: A favored tactic of hers is to pretend to be trapped or surrounded before pulling her gun. Done very cinematically when she lets herself get cornered and surrounded by a gang, only to for her to teach them why you don't bring a knife to a gun fight.
