Pets/Raphael Nussbaum/1974

Pets charts the adventures of misadventures of a young woman named Bonnie (Candice Rialson). As the movie opens she’s being beaten up on by her brother. She runs away from him and hooks up with a feisty black woman, Pat (Teri Guzman). They accept a lift from a middle-aged sleazy businessman type in a convertible. He thinks he’s in for some fun and games with a couple of willing hotties but when Pat produces a gun from her handbag and orders him to drive off into the woods he discovers that they’re actually going to have fun and games with him. Only it’s not going to be fun for him at all. The movie is all about dominance and submission, both psychological and sexual. Every relationship is a power struggle. What makes this more than a simple exercise in sexploitation is the complexity of the characters and of their relationships. The power balances constantly shift.