Just in case you prefer your 70's exploitation extremely rancid, gratuitous, pointless, psychedelic and not needlessly stretched, well then you should definitely ask "Janie" out on a date! This cheap excuse for a motion picture barely runs over an hour, but it contains more sleaze and general weirdness than the majority of exploitation movies do in their normal running times. "Janie" is totally
demented, but at the same time hugely entertaining as long as tolerate constant errors in continuity, a lack of plotting, hideous photography and sex-laden situations that are politically incorrect to the extreme. Janie is a perky and sensationally torrid teenager with clearly more than one mental issue. She doesn't speak too much herself, but her guiding voice does all the talking for her. The narrating voice talks about the beauty of the autumn season (because then everything is dying or dead) and continuously reassures Janie that she's better than everyone else and that everybody in her direct surrounding should meet a violent death. According to the charming voice in her head, the only man good enough for Janie is her daddy, and thus she sets off to see him. On her journey Janie runs a car over her classmate and a random guy, stabs a pervert in the back, cuts up a lesbian and peeks through the keyhole to watch her stepfather beat the hell out of her mother. Eventually she arrives and has sex with her father, though not before strangling his bitchy mistress with her belt. As you see, just another average day in the life of a wicked teenager
What makes this film so awesome (in terms of tastelessness, so to speak) are Janie's reactions to murder & mayhem. She reacts to the sight of bloodied corpses like other teenage girls react to, say, the release of Justin Timberlake's new CD or a huge discount on pretty shoes. She giggles, playfully hops around and promptly begins to masturbate where she stands. Okay, most teenage girls probably don't do that when they buy shoes
Mary Jane Carpenter undoubtedly ranks very high on the unofficial list of "hottest-actresses-to-appear-in-just-one-movie" and she depicts her character like she's some type of exploitation version of Little Red Riding Hood. She looks genuinely irresistible in her too tight uniform and the boots are just
wow! The murders are gruesome but not exactly shocking and the overly cheap editing and acid-soundtrack are often quite annoying. But hey, it's all about boobs and dementia so why complain. One final trivia detail cult fanatics are likely to appreciate is that both Michael and Roberta Findley have supportive roles.
