Bringing the War Home: ‘The Exterminator’ (1980) — Urban Vigilante Justice

John Eastland delivers violent justice. Credit: StudioCanal

The tagline on the theatrical poster of The Exterminator reads, “In war, you have to kill to stay alive… on the streets of New York, it’s often the same.” There is a moment in the film when protagonist John Eastland (Robert Ginty, 1948–2009) tells his best friend and brother-in-arms, Michael Jefferson (Steve James, 1952–1993), “I found the guys that did this to you, and I’ve taken care of it. It’s strange; it feels like we were back in Nam. It didn’t matter whether it was right or wrong, I just did it.” Michael is lying on a hospital bed and he is on life support, as John tells him this. Michael is a husband and father of two, and he saved John‘s life in the Vietnam War. Michael was the victim of a vicious attack by a street gang named the Ghetto Ghouls, in which they gouged his spine with a meat hook, leaving him paralysed for life. John retaliated with swift and brutal retribution.

Much like Michael Winner’s Death Wish six years before it, James Glickenhaus’ The Exterminator was born from the frustrations of citizens inhabiting densely populated cities. This was due to the high crime rates, and the police and politicians’ inability to deal with it and protect them. Filmed at the tail end of 1979, it unflinchingly depicts the urban decay of New York of the era. It is a nasty piece of exploitation — a gritty, grim, grimy, sleazy, and über violent vigilante actioner. It is set in two locations of the city: 42nd Street, Times Square, which ironically, is populated by the grindhouse theatres that showed exploitation pictures such as this, and in the cesspool of Hell’s Kitchen. Its lack of visual flair only works to its advantage in painting a bleak portrait of the mean streets that are mostly shot at night.

However, the film is thoughtful with its sympathetic portrayal of Vietnam veterans’ inner turmoil, as they try to cope with their returns to society and fit in, just four years after the end of the conflict. John’s PTSD deepens the narrative, as his traumatic experiences have left him with deep-seated scars, and we empathize with him. He is a quiet loner, has no other friends, has no family, other than Michael and his wife and children, and he is fiercely loyal to them. After John takes revenge for his friend, he gets the hunger for vigilante justice, and he turns New York City into his personal warzone. He now has another use for his military training that gives him purpose. He has found his place by being judge, jury, and executioner of the dregs of the society he has been forced back to. He has been a delayed bomb, and it took him being pushed too far to go off. We root for him to take out the scumbags, as he remains compassionate to their victims. What Robert Ginty lacks in charisma and versatility as an actor works within this context, as his character is an everyman like you and me. This is what makes him identifiable as an anti-hero. John sends a letter to the media signed with a nom de guerre (war name) as ‘The Exterminator’.

After avenging the tragedy of his friend, John becomes the exterminator of society’s ills. Credit: StudioCanal

One of the most compelling parts of The Exterminator is inspired by Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976):

A man picks up a 20-year-old female hooker. He turns out to be a child sex ringleader, when he takes the woman to his “chicken place”, which is a street slang term for a prostitution house where young children are provided to paedophile clients. Here an elderly state senator wants to have a threesome with her and a boy. She is disgusted by this, so she refuses and tries to leave, but they take her to a bed, tie her to it, they strip her, and the old vile pervert scalds her breasts with a soldering iron.

Later, by chance, she approaches John on the street as a potential customer, and he accepts her proposal, so they go to a seedy room. When she undoes her blouse, he sees her unsightly scars, and she tells him what happened. He promises her nobody will hurt her again. He tracks down the child sex trafficker and his client that did this to her. He gets into the place by posing as a sex trader who wants to sell a boy. When he gets the response he needs for confirmation, it makes him angrier and his punishment of these sick fiends more severe, as he dispatches them with such malice.

The set-up seeks our revulsion, and then we are given catharsis, as we see this slime of humanity get their comeuppance in exploitative thrills. Then we are emotionally rewarded with John’s endearing act of human kindness, when he unties a young boy that the senator was abusing, and he comforts him. These scenes were shot in an illegal prostitution house on 42nd Street that had just been closed down by the police.

John deals out brutal punishment on a scumbag child sex ring. Credit: StudioCanal

Juxtaposed to these horrid events are romantic scenes between Detective James Dalton (Christopher George, 1931–1983) and Dr. Megan Stewart (Samantha Eggar, 1939–2025). Dalton is investigating John’s murders, and he himself is a Vietnam War veteran. Meagan is overseeing the treatment of one of John’s low-life victims. While they are having a late-night picnic in Central Park, the other events take place simultaneously. As we hear the sound of non-diegetic sentimental music, the camera leaves them with an aerial shot to establish the bright lights of the city. It then cuts to the setting of 42nd Street, where we see the child sex ringleader pick up the young prostitute. When the heinous act has been committed, the film goes back to Dalton and Samantha’s date. This is a contrast of light and dark. We see a fledgling romance, but we are reminded that it is a harsh and cruel world by the prostitute’s horrific ordeal.

This is further emphasized during their second date. Samantha asks Dalton what it was like in Vietnam, to which Dalton replies it was bad, but not as bad as New York. It then cuts to an old woman being mugged by the remnants of the Ghetto Ghouls. John had interrogated one of them to find Michael’s attackers, but this time, he does not let him off. This perfectly illustrates the tagline, “In war, you have to kill to stay alive… on the streets of New York, it’s often the same.”

There are some much-needed moments of levity from George’s Dalton. He says to an interfering CIA agent, “I think you have to take a shit, it’s coming out of your mouth instead of your asshole.” Christopher George gives one of the most solid performances.

The CIA does not want the NYPD to bring in John because they would rather assassinate him. The presidential election is coming up, and they do not want to risk the trial bringing up some “embarrassing issues”, because the president’s campaign promises include fixing his administration’s inability to tackle crime. They suspect John’s vigilante work is a conspiracy by an opposition party or by a foreign government. John’s way of clearing up crime gets more results than the government could hope for, but it exists outside of its judicial system. They would rather take John out of the picture than let him shame its inadequacies by his more violent yet effective methods. It is not as simple as good vs. evil on the streets of New York, as nothing is black and white. Just like in Nam, it is always politics.

Christopher George gives one of the most solid performances as Detective James Dalton, and he provides moments of levity in a grim affair. Credit: StudioCanal

The Exterminator was a hit at the US box office, grossing $5 million on a small $2 million budget, and it would find more success on the home video market. I can remember it being a favourite rental of adults in the UK. When I was growing up in South East London, England, in the 1980s, I would go with my parents to our local video rental store called Showtime Video. One of my earliest memories of this is seeing the big box VHS cases of The Exterminator and its 1984 sequel, Exterminator 2. The latter of which was produced by Cannon Films, and it was less successful, both artistically and commercially. The infamous image on both the theatrical poster and the video case cover of The Exterminator, features a man wearing a motorcycle helmet, and he is wielding a flamethrower, but this does not feature in the film. Whereas the artwork for Exterminator 2 features a man wearing a welding mask, and he is using a flamethrower too, which a returning Robert Ginty does do.

The film descended into obscurity in the 1990s, but due to the rapid rise of DVD and the internet at the turn of the century, it developed a cult following thanks to film fans and commentators spreading awareness of it. At the time of writing, Arrow Video’s 2011 Blu-ray release is the best way to watch it at home.

The Exterminator delivers on its promise with satisfying brutality on the scum that deserves it. Although the pathos in its examination of post-Vietnam War anxieties, sets it apart from the slew of urban vigilante action movies of the time that were inspired by Death Wish.

The UK pre-cert VHS rental release of The Exterminator.