Good story, Not enough for a whole film

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

I saw a few clips of Lovely But Deadly online and I just had to see it all so I got the VHS on eBay. It isn't a good movie but it's pretty entertaining. Lucinda Dooling is absolutely, um, lovely as Lovely. It really is too bad she wasn't in many other movies. The rest of the cast is okay. The writing isn't too bad, although there are definitely quite a few scenes that are unintentionally funny and the real jokes are only funny because they aren't funny: "I think you guys are too pushy." "Pushy? I'll show you pushy" *Gives first guy a light shove*. But I think the scene with the cat fight at the costume party and the scene where this one guy is steamed to death in a cardboard box (among some others) place Lovely But Deadly firmly in so-bad-it's-good territory. And as one of those kinds of movies it succeeds and that's why I'm giving it a 10/10.Some other reviewers here have noted that the score is kind of James Bond-like, and I must admit it does sound kind of discount-John Barryish. There's even a catchy song that plays during the opening credits. This movie kind of reminded me of the James Bond series in a few other ways. The ending in which the cheerleaders beat up a bunch of guards working for the bad guy kind of reminded me of the end of Octopussy, in which circus performer ladies beat up Kamal Khan's guards. Actually, Lovely But Deadly came out two years before Octopussy. Of course, I'm guessing the writers of the thirteenth James Bond movie probably never saw (let alone heard) of Lovely But Deadly. Also, Gomorrah (Seriously?) kind of reminded me of Jaws. Kind of. It's too bad Lovely But Deadly hasn't had a Blu-Ray release like some other cheesy low-budget movies from the '80s.

One scene in 'Lovely but Deadly' has rightly become legendary among those who go for this sort of thing. Lucinda Dooling, her startlingly cut (for 1981) muscles rippling, subdues the high school pusher, forcing him to take an overdose of his "own medicine," all the while speaking to him in the calmest, sweetest tones imaginable, absolutely in control.The rest of the film is good cheesy fun -- best watched with some buddies and a six pack -- but the one scene is dangerous erotica. We have never really had a genuinely tough movie heroine who caught on with the general public (although Kathy Long, Jillian Kesner and Lucinda Dickey certainly had the stuff) and "Lovely But Deadly" stands as the one claim Dooling might have had for this title.

An all-white moralistic remake of "Coffy" (the 1973 Pam Grier blaxploitation classic), presenting karate-ing cheerleaders and highschool girls, evil drug dealers, a little catfight and lots of unintentional laughs. The opening credits of "Lovely But Deadly" are presented over a static shot of a high-school dance in 1981. The music, being performed and orchestrated in a 007-like style, sounds outdated, exaggerated and does not fit in the cheesy late 70s sets in the background. The sweet rotten smell of campiness instantly rushes in. "How low can they go?.../ How high can they fly?" - that's what the title song lyrics say and that's what you're starting to ask yourself. "Lovely But Deadly" is about a young lady named Mary Ann Lovett (an admittedly real cute brunette named Lucinda Dooling) and her friends just call her Lovely. In the beginning, her brother drowns in a ridiculously far fetched drug-related accident. Angry as hell, Lovely decides to stop drugs in her high school, starting with killing "Captain Magic," the only really likable character so far, who has some incredible dialogue before Lovely stuffs drugs down his throat and he dies. Dead too quick. The next bad guys will be treated to better visual effect: let's get some martial arts action into the movie. Well, Lovely and all the other girlie fighters have obviously been trained in the secret arts by just watching a half-minute-preview of some Hongkong flick. So we get to see sheer incredibly clumsy fight scenes. Well, after all "everybody was Kung Fu fighting" those days... Talking of music: There is also a Rock Band in the movie, because Lovely's cheesy boyfriend is the lead singer of a band of smartasses who, during a class and out of the blue, are performing (poorly dubbed) a truly "electrifying" love song. All in all, a genuine classic of poor white drive-in trash. Yet probably too bad to ever get some cult approach.

An absolute classic for fans of mixed fighting. Actually, this is my favorite film of all time. A Young lady goes after a gang of drug dealers to get revenge for the drug related death of her brother. There are many nice mixed fight scenes in the movie. The greatest scene of all is after Lucinda has beat up a pusher, she pins his arms under her knees behind his back and rubs his throat forcing him to drink his own drugs. Simply awesome.