Streetwalkin'

In flight from a wretched family life, naive Cookie (Leo) arrives in New York with only her tears, pocket money, and dumb younger brother (Batinkoff) for company. Quick to comfort her is charming, handsome Duke (Midkiff); trouble is, he's a psychopathically violent pimp, and soon she's selling her body on the seedy streets. Blinded by love, it's only after he's transformed her room-mate's face into steak tartare that she turns to another pimp for protection, and Duke sets out in search of his errant breadwinner, murder on his mind. Given that, like Penelope Spheeris and Amy Jones, Joan Freeman made this, her first feature, under the aegis of producer Roger Corman, high hopes seemed in order. No such luck. Starting off as lurid, documentary-style melodrama before it settles into an over-extended and often risible cat-and-mouse chase, this witless pile of prurient sleaze is poorly paced and saddled with a predictable script, stereotype characterisations, and distastefully voyeuristic direction.