There are bad movies. Then there are Al Adamson movies. And then, in a category all its own, there’s The Female Bunch—a biker-chick-meets-horse-ranch fever dream that feels like it was conceived after Adamson dropped a tab of acid into a warm can of Schlitz, stared at a Marlboro billboard too long, and said, “What if women… but violent?” It’s not a feminist manifesto. It’s not even grindhouse gold. It’s just a 90-minute sweat-drenched mess where nobody seems to know their lines, let alone why they’re riding horses through the desert like they’re auditioning for Hee Haw: The Purge.
🏜️ The Plot – And I Use That Word Very Loosely
Here’s the setup: Grace (Jennifer Bishop), a jaded woman with a permanent scowl and enough eyeliner to dam a river, runs a desert hideout for other “fed-up” women. These gals are done with men, the law, and apparently showers. They hang out at a secluded ranch, ride horses, wear tight pants, drink like pirates, and stab any man who looks at them sideways—or even looks at them directly. Or accidentally walks into frame.
Into this estrogen-fueled purgatory stumbles Libby (Nesa Renet), a blonde who’s clearly never read a script before. She’s been cheated on and is welcomed into the “female bunch” by Grace, who basically says, “Join us, we’re angry, sunburned, and prone to slow-motion violence.”
Soon, Libby’s being taught how to use a whip, how to hold a gun, and how to glower while wind machines destroy her hairstyle. There are subplots involving smuggling drugs across the border on horseback (yes, really), beating up men for sport, and having badly lit group therapy sessions that devolve into slap fights and unearned lesbian undertones.
🧨 The Dialogue – Written by a Drunk Typewriter
There’s a moment when one of the women growls, “Men are weak… we’ve got the guns now.” It’s supposed to be empowering, but it sounds like something a sleep-deprived stage actress might mutter at a Waffle House at 3 a.m. after losing a regional theater role to a mannequin.
Most of the dialogue feels improvised by people who have never spoken before. Every line is delivered either in a dead-eyed monotone or an angry scream that ends in a cough. People speak in dramatic aphorisms like “The desert doesn’t forgive!” and “He touched me with his eyes!”—which would be poetic if this wasn’t a movie that looks like it was shot through a napkin soaked in Coors Light.
🎭 The Acting – Or: Let’s Just Stand Here and Blink
Jennifer Bishop, as Grace, commits to the role like she’s in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof—which might’ve helped if the rest of the cast didn’t act like they were lobotomized rodeo clowns. Bishop glowers, spits lines like they insulted her, and occasionally pistol-whips men in slow motion. You almost feel bad for her, because she’s clearly trying. She’s drowning in a sea of acting so wooden, termites were seen fleeing the theater.
Nesa Renet, as Libby, seems like she was cast because she wandered into the wrong audition and agreed to do her own stunts—poorly. Her facial expressions range from “mild concern” to “I just remembered I left the oven on.” When she’s supposed to be enraged, she looks vaguely confused, like someone handed her a grocery list written in Latin.
The male characters—all two of them with speaking roles—exist only to be punched, humiliated, or murdered. One of them even gets impaled on a pitchfork, which is honestly a mercy killing at that point.
🐎 Horses, Whips, and Desert Psychosis
There’s a lot of horseback riding. So much, in fact, you’d think this was a failed Bonanza spinoff sponsored by Marlboro and a whip manufacturer. There’s also a training montage where Libby is taught to shoot, whip, and probably how to look menacing while squinting into the sun—but the editing is so chaotic you can’t tell if it’s training or a dream sequence from Unsolved Mysteries.
And then there’s the drug smuggling subplot. In what might be the dumbest criminal enterprise in cinema, the “female bunch” transports heroin across the Mexican border… on horseback… through the desert… dressed like the rodeo version of Charlie’s Angels. It’s less Breaking Bad and more Breaking Brain Cells.
🎵 The Music – From the Casio Crypt
The soundtrack is a psychotropic country-western fever dream composed by a haunted harmonica and a guy who learned how to use a synthesizer two days before scoring the film. The music shifts from slow-motion honky-tonk to eerie wind-chime death ballads with no warning, like the composer was drunk and thought the movie was about haunted scarecrows.
Sometimes, the music just disappears altogether—leaving you to endure long stretches of women glaring at each other while wind howls and someone’s boots squeak on dusty linoleum.
🎬 The Direction – A Cry for Help in 35mm
Al Adamson directed this the same way you might direct traffic during a blackout: with random hand gestures, blind faith, and the hope nobody sues. Scenes are stitched together with the care of a ransom note. Editing is choppy, reaction shots come several seconds too late, and there’s a truly baffling number of slow zooms on cowboy boots.
Sometimes, you’ll see the same footage twice—because Adamson clearly thought repetition equals tension. It doesn’t. It just makes you question whether you’re experiencing a continuity error or early-onset heatstroke.
🔚 The Ending – Please Make It Stop
Eventually, the whole mess culminates in a showdown between Grace and her own ideology—if you want to call it that. There’s betrayal, shootouts, a few whip cracks, and a whole lot of slow-motion blood that looks like barbecue sauce being spilled on sandpaper.
Libby tries to escape, and Grace goes full desert cult leader. The finale is supposed to be tragic, but it plays out more like a student film about feminism written by a hungover frat boy. There’s even a voiceover trying to make it all sound deep: “They rode into the desert… and were never seen again.” Good. Keep riding.
💀 Final Thoughts: A Feminist Western with a Head Injury
The Female Bunch is exploitation cinema without the fun. It thinks it’s edgy and rebellious, but it’s really just confused, poorly acted, and accidentally hilarious. It tries to say something about gender, power, and violence, but ends up saying, “I don’t know what genre I am, but here’s a whip.”
It’s like The Wild Bunch if Sam Peckinpah had directed it with oven mitts on and a concussion. And while there are moments of so-bad-it’s-good lunacy, they’re buried under enough tedium to make you root for heat exhaustion.
Final Rating: 1 out of 5 Dead Desert Brain Cells
One star for Jennifer Bishop, who deserves a better career and probably a tetanus shot after this. Everyone else—including the editor, the boom mic operator, and the guy who thought horseback heroin smuggling was a good idea—deserves 90 minutes of court-mandated silence.
