SparkMore
n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.
AshUnow
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Frances Chung
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
Quiet Muffin
This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.
HumanoidOfFlesh
Childish and slightly unhinged Rosalie imprisons hapless jewelry salesman Virgil in her dusty farm.Poor guy is strapped to an iron bed after Rosalie has broken his leg with the back end of an axe.Suddenly a demented biker appears and they both find themselves dominated and tormented by him...I am fairly sure that after watching "The Strange Vengeance of Rosalie" Stephen King took the main idea to write his bestselling novel "Misery".Bonnie Bedelia is excellent as the uneducated,naive and aggressive captor.The final twist is rather silly,but I liked dry and utterly remote desert setting.The film was cut by the studio to achieve the desired PG rating.Thankfully I managed to see all the nude scenes censored from American release.8 out of 10.Very rare 70's film from director Jack Starrett of "Race with the Devil" fame.
lazarillo
A traveling salesman (Ken Howard)gives a teenage half-breed hitchhiker (Bonnie Bedelia) a ride to her isolated shack of a home and soon finds himself with two flat tires and a broken leg, and confined to the bed in the shack at the mercy of this strange young girl, as well as a vicious biker (Anthony Zerbe) who comes to the remote shack looking for some hidden gold. . .The comparison of this movie to Stephen King's "Misery" is obvious but pretty facile I think. First off, it's probably much less 'miserable" to be the love slave of a young Bonnie Bedelia than of Kathy Bates (and the truly grotesque character I personally envisioned from King's book makes even Kathy Bates look like Bonnie Bedelia in comparison). Moreover though, Bedelia's "Rosalie" is clearly intended to be a sympathetic rather than terrifying character here. She is a real naif, and perhaps not too bright, and she has been terribly abused by all the men in her life from her recently deceased father to Zerbe's biker (who had previously raped her). Even her captive here manages to manipulate her terribly and as a result he does not necessarily have the audience's full sympathy.This movie is very interesting in that it's not really a horror film like "Misery". Nor is it really a sex fantasy (or sex fantasy gone wrong) like the later 70's film "Death Game". But rather it is a serious, two-or-three character drama. The end, unfortunately, which involves "Rosalie's" real "vengeance", is not very believable. It is very well acted though, especially by Bedelia. I too am surprised it hasn't been legitimately released on DVD yet--Bedelia would, of course, go to star in "Die Hard", Zerbe had previously been in "The Omega Man", director Jack Starret would go to do the 70's cult favorite "Race with the Devil", and Howard go on to, uh, the 70's TV series "The White Shadow". I suspect that (unlike a lot of stuff I watch) this WILL be on DVD someday. You might wait until then, but definitely check it out.
Coventry
Sometimes, regretfully seldom though, one single glimpse at the opening sequence is enough to know the film that the film you're about to watch will turn out everything you look for in obscure, neglected and ultra-gritty 70's cinema. In my case it also proves an incurable lunatic, of course, because "The Strange Vengeance of Rosalie" opens with a beautiful pan shot of a forsaken desert area. There are living chickens tied to a tree (!) and the titular character is digging a hole in the ground to dispose of a corpse. Truly magnificent opening and even though nothing else in the film lives up to the beauty of this intro, I'd still recommend the film if just for that! The few reviews I encountered on "The Strange Vengeance of Rosalie" accurately refer to the film as a predecessor of "Misery". I wouldn't go as far as calling Stephen King's story a rip-off, but there are certainly common themes and recognizable sequences to find in this film that came out nearly two full decades before King published his book. Bonnie Bedelia is best known for playing Bruce Willis' wife in "Die Hard" but this is an actual eye-catching and stellar performance! Her still under-aged character Rosalie lures the handsome Virgil to her remote cabin in the New Mexican desert, and she intends to keep him there even if that means physically disabling him. There's where the link with "Misery" becomes indisputable. Rosalie breaks the guy's leg, ties him to the bed and subsequently nurses him like she's a caring wife. The party of two then brutally gets interrupted by a biker looking for the gold that is reputedly hidden in the area somewhere. Rosalie may be young, but she's dangerously deranged enough to take on two adult men. "Strange" is definitely the term to use here, as it's a gritty and thoroughly unpredictable film that moodily unfolds with each minute that passes. The isolated setting is grim and the hopeless situation in which Virgil finds himself stuck in is more than a little disturbing. The interactions between Rosalie and her bed-ridden victim do become a little monotonous eventually and I wouldn't have mind if some of that footage ended up on the cutting floor. 107 minutes of running time is rather long for this type of film, but at least it comes with a crude and offbeat 70's end-shot and the obligatory uncanny "La La La" song. Stunning as it may sound, the script never reverts to being gratuitous exploitation, even though all the themes hint towards that direction. A beautiful and scantily dressed minor literally throws herself at this potent, thirty-something guy, yet he doesn't take advantage of her. Heck, even the sleazy biker doesn't make a move at raping her. It's really quite admirable how the film thrives on awkwardness, stellar performances and various depictions of human despair instead of on sex. "The Strange Vengeance of Rosalie" is a unique find for cult collectors and based on the acting skills illustrated here, it's a real shame Bedelia never become one of Hollywood's most wanted starlets.
Dii
Richard (Ken Howard) is very clean and white in comparison to a brown and dusty landscape filled with brown, dusty people. He stands out like a cultivated plant in a wild desert garden. Rosalie is the girl you, at times, feel sorry for and, at times, are just simply disgusted with. Bonnie Bedelia does a wonderful job of playing her with a very hard stubborn edge that can drive you crazy. You will leave this movie feeling bewildered and frustrated to all hell.