Death Wish

New York City Vigilantes at Anthology Film Archives Aug. 22-24

There’s a long tradition of movies about vigilantes cleaning up New York City. The ’80s included some vital work by director William Lustig. Sadly, 1983’s Vigilante (starring Robert Forster in his last great role of the decade) and 1988’s Maniac Cop (written by Lustig’s frequent collaborator Larry Cohen) were seen by most of America as direct-to-video product. The good news is that Lustig—as a Bronx native and veteran grindhouse fan—was able to enjoy watching his films on 42nd Street.

“When Vigilante opened,” says Lustig, “it was playing both theaters at the New Cinerama 1 & 2. It was playing around the clock. I went in, and the security guard was spraying some kind of air freshener in the aisles. During the scene where Robert Forster is on Riker’s Island, some guy sitting in front of me pointed to the screen and shouted, ‘That’s where I stayed!’”

Then things got weirder: “About three months later, Vigilante was playing in Times Square as the second feature with E.T. Can you imagine the family that went to see that?”

Now you can bring the kids to big-screen showings of Maniac Cop, Maniac Cop 2 and Vigilante—all showing at Anthology Film Archives as part of their “New York City Vigilantes” series. The violent fun kicks off with a double feature of Abel Ferrara’s Ms. 45 (1981) and Michael Winner’s classic Death Wish (1974) on Aug. 21 and 23. Then you get both barrels of Maniac Cop and ’93’s Maniac Cop 2 on Aug. 22 and 24 (with Lustig making a personal appearance at the Aug. 22 screenings).

Lustig made his first big splatter with the tale of a serial killer in the classic 1980 slasher film Maniac. His next three films—including Vigilante and Maniac Cop—celebrated homicidal good guys. They were all welcome in Times Square grindhouses, too. This brings up the curious part about the era’s vigilante films. The audience was often the kind of crowd that was being murdered by the good guy.

“Yeah,” says Lustig, “I always thought that when Vigilante and Death Wish played in Times Square, they were viewed differently than in suburbia. The audience had a different relationship to the people on the screen. These movies are Westerns, first and foremost. Back then, there was definitely a siege mentality for people living in urban environments. These were the gunslingers—Bronson, Robert Forster, Robert Ginty.”

The first of those names, of course, refers to Death Wish star Charles Bronson. The last of those names starred in 1980’s The Exterminator, in which a Vietnam vet rids New York City of child molesters and other vermin.

“I’m kind of surprised that they’re not showing The Exterminator,” adds Lustig. “That one’s kind of iconic. But then, I think it’s odd that they lumped the Maniac Cop movies into the series. I never considered them to be vigilante movies. I thought of them as a cross between The French Connection and Frankenstein. I can see that they take place in New York and involve crime fighting. I just think the person who programmed them may not have seen the movies, because the Maniac Cop goes after innocent civilians.”

That’s a typically vital distinction to Lustig. His films are never so entertaining that they breeze past moral issues. As the man behind the Blue Underground video label, Lustig has reissued some truly depraved masterpieces. That doesn’t mean he’s thrilled with certain modern horror films that focus on victims instead of trigger-happy heroes.

“Tell you the truth,” says Lustig, “I don’t find that kind of thing to be pleasant. There is a mean-spiritedness to a lot of those films. I’ve never been appalled by violence, but there comes a point when it becomes ugly. I’m not sure where that line is drawn. I don’t find The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to be unpleasant. There’s something stylish about that kind of film. It’s suspenseful when the girl’s impaled on the meathook. Now they just feature torture.”

Lustig has made plenty of other vigilante films—including the avenging small-town slaughter of 1997’s Uncle Sam (also scripted by Cohen, and with a reanimated Iraq War veteran going after potheads and people who cheat in sack races). There’s also the fine L.A. mayhem of 1989’s Hit List, with a vigilante dad tracking down his kidnapped son.

Lustig has another fine vigilante film that’s sort of a secret. He took his name off 1992’s The Expert. There are still plenty of great directorial touches in this tale of a SWAT instructor who breaks into a prison to carry out a death penalty. The cast includes James Brolin (in his pre-Streisand days) as a tough warden who offers grilled meats to the sensitive media gathered to cover an execution.

Sadly, the movie isn’t set in New York City. You don’t get the star power of a Robert Forster, either.

“I was saddled with the guy who starred in it,” Lustig recalls. “He wasn’t really an actor. That’s what made the whole thing so—well, it wasn’t the best experience. The script kind of got perverted along the way, but that was another great idea from Larry Cohen. I don’t recall anything about the movie being location-specific. You can pretend it’s set on Long Island.”