It’s been 50 years since Poor Pretty Eddie first bled onto grindhouse screens—an exploitation oddity so unrelenting in tone, it still rattles the nerves. Directed by Richard Robinson and David Worth, this backwoods fever dream masquerades as a cautionary tale but plays out more like a cultural endurance test. Yet, even within its murky execution and dubious intent, a pair of unforgettable performances rise above the muck.

Lesley Uggams, cast against type as jazz singer Liz Wetherly, is the emotional core of the film. Her portrayal is both defiant and devastating, as her character is stranded, isolated, and ultimately brutalised in a world thick with racial animosity and patriarchal cruelty. Shelley Winters, meanwhile, leans into grotesque Southern Gothic as Bertha, the deluded former starlet whose fading glamour and bitterness curdle into complicity. Together, these two women anchor the film with performances that are far more compelling than the script deserves.

The story is minimal—a wrong turn leads Liz to an isolated Georgia lodge where Eddie, a preening and dangerous wannabe Elvis (played with jittery menace by Michael Christian), holds sway under Bertha’s unstable watch. What follows is a grim and often exploitative descent into humiliation, abuse, and domination.

At the heart of Poor Pretty Eddie lies a scathing, if poorly handled, examination of systemic white supremacy in the American South. The film doesn’t shy away from making race the centerpiece of its tension—Liz’s every interaction is filtered through the hostile gaze of a white society determined to strip her of autonomy. There’s an ugliness to the way this is handled, and a leering sensationalism that taints the message, but the subtext is undeniably there: this is a tale about a Black woman’s body and spirit being colonised, scrutinised, and fought over in a place that sees her as nothing more than an intruder.

What’s most haunting, perhaps, is that the film’s ugliest behaviors and racist ideologies remain deeply relevant. In its raw depiction of institutional and interpersonal racism—especially how it is normalised, ignored, or celebrated by those in power—Poor Pretty Eddie still finds uncomfortable resonance in 2025.

Unfortunately, the exploitative style undermines much of the film’s thematic potential. The gratuitous nature of the violence, the sleazy tone, and the amateurish editing reduce powerful commentary to provocation. The direction is uneven, and the pacing is meandering, trapping viewers in a murky stew of misogyny and nihilism without offering a satisfying critique or catharsis.

As an artifact of its era, Poor Pretty Eddie is fascinating and infuriating in equal measure. But as a film, it buckles under the weight of its own grotesquery. Still, thanks to Uggams and Winters, the film leaves a mark—even if it’s more bruise than breakthrough.

• Saul Muerte