-Grindhouse Fest is the special section in Celluloid Dimension where you can discover all the goodies…and baddies from the golden age of exploitation cinema. Have fun!
Directed by Eddie Romero
Written by H. Franco Moon and Harry Corner
Starring:
- Gloria Hendry as Lynn Jackson
- Cheri Caffaro as Jo Turner
- Rosanna Ortiz as Mei Ling
- John Ashley as W.P. Billingsley
- Sid Haig as Malavasi
Rating: 
Savage Sisters hits hard with a combo of political venom and jungle-sweat sleaze. Directed by Eddie Romero—think Jack Hill with tropical humidity—this slice of Filipino exploitation tears into one of Romero’s go-to themes: busting the myth of noble, freedom-loving banana republics and exposing the madness of military control. Like much of his grindhouse output, it all plays out in some cooked-up island dictatorship, dressed up in fake democracy and running on pure autocratic instinct.
Gloria Hendry, Rosanna Ortiz, and Cheri Caffaro—an unlikely trinity of femme insurrectionists—command the screen in this genre-defying detour through the tropes of carceral exploitation. Their shared mission is a morally inverted treasure hunt: to seize a briefcase bloated with stolen millions, misappropriated by the flamboyantly depraved Malavasi, played by Sid Haig in a performance that borders on farce. Yet the film’s crowning irony lies in its ethical paradox—stealing from tyrants is no crime at all, but rather an act of poetic sabotage.
American beach hunk John Ashley—still riding the coattails of his pulp stardom—shows up here as a slick-talking con man, another shark in the water after that ten-million-dollar briefcase. His smug grin and phony bravado inject the film with pure B-movie swagger, but it’s Eddie Romero’s satirical sleaze-show that steals the spotlight. With a wink and a sneer, Romero coats this gritty jungle chase in the glossy absurdity of a Third World political pop-art fever dream, twisting the whole women-in-prison formula into something that’s half comic strip, half political farce.
If there was ever any lingering skepticism about Eddie Romero’s status as the supreme entertainer of Filipino exploitation, Savage Sisters will settle it. Whether you’re a diehard genre freak or just stumbling in for the sleaze, this is peak pop delirium. “Sex, politics, and money,” John Ashley declares with a cocky smirk, setting the tone for the gonzo rollercoaster ahead. Romero doesn’t just flirt with politics—he folds it right into the grindhouse blueprint, and the result is a riot of chaos, cleavage, and revolutionary camp.
