Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives is a 2010 American rape and revenge exploitation film written and directed by Israel Luna. The film follows a trio of trans women who exact revenge on the men who brutally assault them and murder two of their friends. The film is split into five chapters, one of which is a missing reel.
The film engendered controversy when it was programmed at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) condemned the film for what it called a negative portrayal of transgender people.
Plot
After performing at a local club, trans women Rachel Slurr and Emma Grashun plan to party with Nacho and Chuey. When the guys tell them that they have a third friend, the girls convince their reluctant friend Bubbles Cliquot to join them. The girls drive to a warehouse where they are joined by Nacho and Chuey, along with their partner Boner. Bubbles tells her friends that Boner had recently drugged and raped her during a hook-up when he discovered she was a pre-op woman. Vowing to "finish the job", Boner, Nacho and Chuey attack the girls. Emma and Rachel are severely wounded but Bubbles is able to call her "mother" Pinky La'Trimm and Tipper Sommore and escape. Pinky and Tipper find Bubbles outside the warehouse and head inside to rescue Rachel and Emma. Instead, they are overpowered by the men and Boner attacks Bubbles again outside.
Some time later, Bubbles awakens from a coma. She learns from Pinky and Rachel that Emma and Tipper are dead. After Bubbles is discharged from the hospital, her friend Fergus trains the three surviving women in martial arts.
Back at Bubbles' apartment, Boner, Nacho and Chuey break in and overpower her again, tying her to a chair. Boner offers Bubbles a choice of ways to die but he momentarily turns his back on her. When he turns back Nacho and Chuey are unconscious and Bubbles, freed, knocks him out. A flashback reveals that Bubbles, Pinky, and Rachel set a trap for the men.
Boner regains consciousness to learn that the women have placed switchblade knives in the rectal cavities of Nacho and Chuey and a gun in his own rectum, weapons that will be triggered if any of them make any sudden moves. In a series of convoluted action sequences, Nacho and Chuey each recovers his knife and battles one of the women. Pinky kills Chuey and Rachel battles Nacho until Boner recovers his gun and holds it on Bubbles. Bubbles wrestles him for the weapon and, as Rachel finishes off Nacho, Bubbles shoots Boner in the chest. Pinky and Rachel each impale Boner with their thrown knives and Bubbles wrenches a large knife out of Nacho's skull and splits Boner's head with it, finally killing him.
Cast
Krystal Summers as Bubbles Cliquot
Kelexis Davenport as Pinky La'Trimm
Willam Belli as Rachel Slurr
Erica Andrews as Emma Grashun
Jenna Skyy as Tipper Sommore
Tom Zembrod as Boner
Richard D. Curtin as Fergus
Kenny Ochoa as Nacho
Gerardo Davila as Chuey
Todd Jenkins as Doctor Phil Laccio
Chase Wade as Nurse Connie Lingus
Molly Spencer as La'Trice
Melissa Timmerman as Marcy
Souk Burrows as Flash
Curt Wheeler as Squirt
Production
Inspiration
Luna was inspired by the exploitation film genre, in particular the 1978 film I Spit on Your Grave and the Linda Blair vehicle Savage Streets. The idea for his self-described "transploitation" film came while he and a group of friends were watching Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's Grindhouse. "After, we were just playing around and someone said I should do this with drag queens. That would be so much fun. I thought, 'Well, let me try to think of how we could do this with absolutely no budget whatsoever.' I thought a simple, old-fashioned revenge movie would be easy to write for me. And that’s what I did."
Luna did not want to tell the story of a male gay bashing victim because he believed that such stories have been told often already. "I wanted to do something more modern and I thought 'Whose story do you never see on the news these days?' It's not gay men—it's transgenders."
Filming
The film was shot in Dallas, Texas, in the summer of 2009, on an 18-day shooting schedule. The finished film is artificially worn with scratches and other indicators of age and at some points a jump in the action is covered with an intertitle indicating that a reel of the film is missing.
Release
Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 23, 2010. The film had a limited theatrical release in October and Region 1 DVD-release on November 2, 2010.