First released in 1980, The Exterminator begins during the Vietnam War.

Two soldiers, John Eastland (Robert Ginty) and Michael Jefferson (future Cannon Film mainstay Steve James) have been captured by the Viet Cong and can only watch as a third soldier is beheaded by his captors.  (The graphic beheading, in which the camera lingers on the head slowly sliding off the neck, is an early warning of what this film has in store for its audience.)  Jefferson manages to free himself from his bonds and kills most of the enemy soldiers.  After Jefferson frees him, Eastland fires a bullet into the still twitching body of the VC commander.

The film jumps forward to 1980.  Living in New York City, Jefferson and Eastland are still best friends and co-workers at a warehouse.  For a second time, Jefferson saves Eastland’s life when the latter is attacked by a gang calling themselves the Ghetto Ghouls.  When the Ghouls get their revenge by tracking down Jefferson and piecing his spine with a meat hook, Eastland gets his revenge by killing …. well, just about everyone that he meets.

Though The Exterminator was obviously inspired by Death Wish, a big difference between the two films is that Eastland doesn’t waste any time before starting his anti-crime crusade.  In the original Death Wish, Paul Kersey (played by Charles Bronson) starts out as a self-described “bleeding heart” liberal who was a conscientious objector during the Korean War.  Even after his wife and daughter are attacked (and his wife killed) by Jeff Goldblum, Kersey doesn’t immediately pick up a gun and start shooting muggers.  Indeed, it’s not until the film is nearly halfway over that Kersey begins his mission and, in one of the film’s more memorable moments, he reacts to his first act of violence by throwing up afterwards.  While one could hardly call Death Wish an especially nuanced film, it does at least try to suggest that Kersey’s transformation into a vigiliante was a gradual process.

The Exterminator, on the other hand, goes straight from Eastland informing Jefferson’s wife about the attack to Eastland threatening a tied-up Ghetto Ghoul with a flame thrower.  When did Eastland kidnap the Ghetto Ghoul?  Why does Eastland have a flame thrower?  Where exactly has Eastland tied up the Ghetto Ghoul?  None of this is explained and the film’s abruptness gives it an almost dream-like feel.  The film plays out like the fantasy of everyone who has ever been mugged or otherwise harassed.  Magically, Eastland suddenly has the skills and the resources to outsmart not just the criminals but also the police who have been assigned to stop him.  Even the CIA is assigned to take down Eastland because his anti-crime crusade is inspiring people to wonder why the President hasn’t been able to reduce crime.  The film plays out like the type of daydreams that Travis Bickle had when he wasn’t driving his taxi.

Eastland is ruthless in his kills but fortunately, everyone he kills is really, really bad.  The Ghetto Ghouls clubhouse is decorated with a poster of Che Guevara but Che’s revolutionary rhetoric isn’t worth much when the Exterminator’s after you.  A mob boss makes the mistake of not telling Eastland about the Doberman that’s guarding his mansion so into the meat grinder he goes.  New Jersey loses a state senator when Eastland discovers him torturing an underage male prostitute.  The film was shot on location in New York City and the camera lingers over every grimy corner of the city.  A scene where Eastland walks through Times Square takes on a cinéma-vérité feel as people jump out at him and try to entice him to take part in everything the city has to offer.  If Death Wish suggested that Paul Kersey’s actions were saving New York, The Exterminator suggests that we should just let John Eastland burn the whole place down.

With his youthful face, Robert Ginty looks more like a mild-mannered seminarian than a hardened veteran of both Vietnam and the mean streets of New York but, ultimately, that works to the film’s advantage.  If anything, it explains why everyone who meets him trends to underestimate what he’s capable of doing.  B-movie vet Christopher George overacts in his usual amusing way as he plays the detective who has been assigned to catch The Exterminator.  Samantha Eggar plays a doctor who starts dating George for no discernible reason.  The scenes featuring George and Eggar often seems as if they belong in a different film but they do provide some relief from the rather grim and gruesome scenes of The Exterminator killing almost everyone who he meets.

The Exterminator was controversial when it was originally released and it still retains the power to shock.  It’s easy to laugh at some of the film’s more melodramatic moments but there were still more than a few scenes that I watched with my hands over my eyes.  The film’s hard edge grabs your attention from the start and the idea of the CIA sending assassins to take out a neighborhood vigilante is so over the top and ridiculous that it’s kind of hard not to appreciate it.  That the film totally buys into its paranoid worldview (“Washington will be pleased.”) makes the whole thing far more compelling than it should be.

As ludicrous as it all is, The Exterminator is a film that defies you to look away.