In a truly slummy area of NYC, a vicious street gang squats inside a dingy apartment building. One of the residents rats them out to the cops, but the revolving doors of justice being what they are, the scum are back out on the street later in the day. Guided by their cool-cat leader Chaco (Enrique Sandino), they spend one whole night and early morning terrorizing the residents, one floor at a time.Considered by some to be exploitation legend Roberta Findlay's finest effort, "Tenement" (a.k.a. "Game of Survival") is gloriously trashy. It's got plenty of sex and violence to satisfy lovers of the genre, with decent action and great attention to grim and grubby detail. This is pretty much prime sleaze, although it does suffer from an over abundance of dummies. These protagonists just do not act sensible often enough. The only one of them who's got something resembling a brain is building tough guy Sam Washington (Joe Lynn). But it's still fun when, in the movies' final quarter, Washington leads his comrades in a concerted effort to thwart the bad guys.And what magnificently nasty bastards they are. Sandino is an amusing head villain, with future Hollywood character actor Paul Calderon making an impressive film debut as one of his flunkies. Super sexy Karen Russell is easy to watch as Chacos' lady friend Chula. All in all, the acting IS better than you'd usually find in a Findlay movie. We've got Mina Bern as old lady Ruth, Walter Bryant as amiable Mr. Wesley, Corinne Château as Carol, the prostitute supporting a junkie boyfriend (Angel David of "The Crow"), Rhetta Hughes as the tough talking Leona, Larry Lara as the insufferable Rojas, Alfonso Manosalvas as lovable old blind man Mr. Gonzales, and Gy Mirano as the very pregnant Anita.There are some lovely gore moments, and a very hip soundtrack. (That theme song is likely to be stuck in your head after the movie is over.) The single most depraved sequence involves a broomstick; it's also something the viewer will definitely remember.Lively entertainment with a smashing climax that takes place as the night is at its darkest and stormiest.Seven out of 10.

Fed up with their basement serving as headquarters to a gang of violent, drug-taking street punks, the tenants of a run-down New York tenement building inform the police about their unwanted guests' stash of illegal narcotics and firearms; believing the gang to be safely behind bars, the delighted tenants hold a party to celebrate, but elation quickly turns to terror when they discover that the thugs have been released from jail and are looking for revenge.Just a few seconds of the horribly dated rap theme-song for Tenement should be enough for most sane movie fans to switch off in abject horror, but those who stay the distance (the certifiably insane, lobotomy patients, obsessive fans of z-grade trash) will find that bad 80s music is possibly the least offensive thing about this film: schlock director Roberta Findlay packs her film to the rafters with scenes of mean-spirited violence and sleaze carefully designed to keep even the most twisted of movie degenerates drooling with glee, including several bloody stabbings, a pair of scissors in the face, a throat slashing, and a rape that ends with the old 'broom handle up the punani' routine.Sadly, while a catalogue of assorted unsavoury acts like this would normally qualify a film as an unmissable exploitation treat in my book, Findlay's typically ham-fisted direction, unconvincing gore, and terrible performances from nearly all involved make this film a gruelling experience for all the wrong reasons. It's not often that a movie can feature so much atrocity, yet still be most memorable for its bad guys' (and gal's) terrible dress sense: sporting cropped vests (tastefully slashed), chains, black spandex, and a fetching range of studded leather apparel, they look like they've either spent the evening partying hard at an S&M club or just been to an audition for raunchy 80s dance troupe Hot Gossip.Some IMDb reviewers have cited this as their favourite of Findlay's directorial work, although as far as I am concerned, choosing your favourite Roberta Findlay film is akin to choosing your favourite STD.

I have to admit, this is a real favorite of mine in the graphic extreme bloody genre of semi-revenge thrillers. (is that even a genre?) Oh well, I saw this back in the day, and what I remember is the x-rating it got, and I don't believe it was ever edited to get any other rating. I watched it a 2nd time last night, and listened to the interesting commentary by director Roberta Findlay. She doesn't understand why it got an x-rating at all, but believe me, this was very strong stuff back in 1985. Basicially a gang of drugged out baddies get kicked out of their basement dwelling and arrested, and soon come back to kill everybody left in the tenement. This has some great stuff in it, some really zonked out homicidal gang members, and some residents that decide to put up a fight. And it is has some pretty decent production value, and the main goodies, extreme graphic violence and a high abundance of blood. This is a good eighties nasty, which deserves a place in your sleeze collection.

A friend brought this DVD to my house after we got a kick of revisiting the unintentionally hilarious DEATH WISH 3. However, the goings on in TENEMENT aren't nearly as accidentally funny, as this is more of a straight-ahead gore film involving a violent gang of young junkies and losers who terrorize the people living in a slummy tenement building in the heart of the rapidly decaying South Bronx area of New York. They are arrested and taken to jail early on, but manage to get out quickly and return to the tenement for revenge by leaving the tenants no route of escape while these punks set out to kill them for their own kicks. As far as trash cinema goes, this one has its brief moments along the way. Directed by Roberta Findlay, who used to work with her late husband Michael on exploitation fodder from the '60s like the infamous "Flesh Trilogy", and who now is one of the few female porn directors, among other things. The title song by Kool Krew is delightfully stupid. *1/2 out of ****