Savage Streets is a 1984 American teen vigilante exploitation film directed by Danny Steinmann and starring Linda Blair, with Linnea Quigley and John Vernon appearing in supporting roles.

It follows a Los Angeles high school student who enacts revenge against the men in a gang who brutalize her deaf-mute younger sister and murder her friend.

Following a successful appeal with the Motion Picture Association of America to revert its X rating, Savage Streets was first released regionally in the midwestern United States in the summer of 1984, and went on to become a major box-office hit in several South American countries, particularly Mexico and Argentina.

[6] Rebellious high-school student Brenda spends an evening on Hollywood Boulevard with her group of friends known as the Satins: Rachel, Stella, Francine, Stevie, and Maria.

Jake exacts revenge by stalking the Satins at their high school, gaining the naive Heather's trust before having his cohorts brutally beat and gang rape her.

Later that night, the girls visit a local disco where they encounter the Scars, and a fight breaks out after Fargo sexually harasses the pregnant Francine.

After Francine has a dress fitting for her impending wedding, she is stalked by the Scars, who chase her through an industrial section of the city before Jake murders her by throwing her off a viaduct spanning the Los Angeles River.

[5] DeSimone was subsequently fired by Fine, after which Danny Steinmann, whose previous directorial credit was the slasher film The Unseen (1980),[8] was hired as his replacement.

Commenting on how he came to be involved with the film, Steinmann said: I was working on a miniseries for Playboy Television starring Britt Ekland, when I got a call from a good friend of mine, Billy Fine.

[9]The shooting of Savage Streets was troubled: According to Blair and Steinmann, the production was shut down approximately two weeks after filming began, attributed to funding issues.

[11] In the United States, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) originally gave the film an X rating, which was successfully appealed by the producers on June 22, 1984.

[5] The central rape sequence remained truncated by the MPAA in the final cut, which was originally longer; according to Steinmann, "The girl’s torment was much more brutal.

[5] It was a major commercial success in South America, ranking as one of the highest-earning films in Mexico for the first half of 1985, outperforming the American box-office hits Ghostbusters and Beverly Hills Cop.

[5] Variety described the film as having "deliciously vulgar dialog and well-directed confrontation scenes," and likening Blair to "a tawdry, delightfully trashy sweater girl in a league with 1950s B-heroines such as Beverly Michaels, Juli Reding and Mamie Van Doren.

"[14] Stephen Holden of The New York Times derided the film, writing: "Savage Streets doesn't even have a rudimentary continuity between its scenes, and its performances are crude cartoons.

[16] Critic Stephen Hunter also felt the film was poorly-made, "low on brains and style and high on mean-spirited violence and undistinguished rock'n'roll.

"[19] Critic Malcolm L. Johnson wrote in the Hartford Courant that director Steinmann "is intent on using the talentless, pudgy-faced Blair as the come-on for a badly crafted exploitation film.

"[20] Scott Cain of The Atlanta Constitution felt Blair's performance was notably lackluster, describing it as "embarrassingly bad," insisting that she "remains the most resolutely unbelievable actress in movies today.

"[21] The film's depiction of rape was also a point of criticism, with F. X. Feeney of LA Weekly remarking that its central sexual assault scene with Linnea Quigley was mean-spirited and excessively graphic, feeling "the sense that by looking at all, I was encouraging the filmmakers' twisted delusion that the act was somehow meaningful or entertaining.

"[20] The Miami News's Jon Marlowe echoed a similar sentiment, feeling the film was sexist and exploitative, but conceded that it "still doesn't stop us from hanging onto the edge of our seats until the final frame rolls and the last arrow flies.