Escape from Hellhole (1983) (also released under several other titles)

This is a review of mine that was deleted from IMDB for reasons I'm unsure of.

Women are kidnapped or tricked into going to a mercenary camp where they are used as sex slaves for the men in training. After much torture and sex and violence and nastiness the women break free and a huge gun battle ensues.

Jaw droppingly insane this is the sort of film that they never made in the US which means it has to come from tsomewhere else- or in this case the Philippines. Wild wanton and wacky this is the sort of wonderful bait a switch "I can't believe I'm watching this sort of movie".

Far from the best film in the world its the sort of thing that forces you to admit you've seen something. Its the weird and wild stream of films like this that kept people going back to the grindhouse week after week. Worth a look for those who want to see what a real grindhouse film is like (as opposed to the Tarantino/Rodriguez versions) If you like the weird and the off beat you must see this film

Pam Grier Grindhouse Triple Feature: BLACK MAMA WHITE MAMA, FOXY BROWN, THE BIG BIRD CAGE

Last Friday I spent most of the day sitting in the darkness watching Pam Grier kick ass and take names in three of her classic action films from the 1970's.  How strange it was to be sitting in Lincoln Center watching films that four decades earlier would have been playing 23 blocks south on 42nd Street. I doubt very highly that back in 1973 that either Pam Grier thought she's be honored with a retrospective of her work, nor would Lincoln Center have imagined it would have been holding one.

BLACK MAMA WHITE MAMA (1973)
Eddie Romero directed women in prison film is, as is often said, a female version of the Defiant Ones set in the jungle. the plot has white revolutionary revolutionary Karen Brent chained to black gangster's girl Lee Daniels in a jungle prison. Brent needs to get out so she can get her friends some guns, while Daniels needs to get out to get the money she stole from her "boyfriend" so she can leave the country. When an attempt to break the pair out goes wrong, the girls do get away but they are chained together with police the police and the bad guys after them.

Sleazy grindhouse fair plays more like it was an early film in the jungle prison film cycle rather than the last one (at least as far as Grier was concerned). An ever escalating film that goes from prison film, to escape drama to road comedy (the girls end up dressed as nuns), to buddy film, to straight on action film with a teary ending. Its a low budget B movie that gives it's audience exactly what it came for, T&A and lots of violence.

I had a blast, and as with all of the films reviewed here, it was a very different experience seeing them projected on a BIG screen as opposed to seeing them on TV. It's also very different seeing the films with an audience who was really there for the films and willing to go along with the films flaws.

FOXY BROWN (1974)
The film which gave the Lincoln Center series its name, has Grier as Foxy looking to get revenge on Miss Katherine and Steve after they kill her boyfriend a government agent who had tried and failed to bring the pair down (they bribed the grand jury).

Solid grindhouse action film is best taken on it's own terms. Yes, I love the film, but the film is so silly at times, it drifts into camp (Katherine's lustful glances), that it's clear that everyone was in on the joke.  Silliness or not the film is a violent sexy film where Grier asserts herself as a no nonsense, take no prisoners kind of woman. Its a performance and a role that very much helped put Grier into the pantheon of iconic actresses. (Think about it, if Grier had walked away from acting after her run of 1970's exploitation films we'd still be talking about her today simply because she changed how women were perceived)

Its a minor classic.

THE BIG BIRD CAGE (1972)
Pam Grier and Sid Haig, perfect together...

Let me try and explain this simply- an actress (Anitra Ford) is tossed in prison after being carried off by revolutionaries Sid Haig and Pam Grier. While in prison Ford suffers torture and humiliation while trying to talk her way out. Meanwhile figuring the best way to spread the revolution would be to get some women involved, Sid and Pam set in motion to break out the prisoners. While the warden goes crazy an escape is planned.

This is a silly film.  It starts over the top and just keeps going with weird twist upon sleazy twist upon WTF were they thinking twist. It's violent and "sexy" (well it has naked chicks) and just aims for the lowest common denominator...and yet it some how manages to rise above it all and turn into something gloriously loopy.

Seeing the film projected for the first time (They used Jack Hill's personal print which is a longer than release version) was a blast. This was the film where I first noticed Pam Grier (I'm guessing it was a re-release which promoted her being in it) so it was nice to finally get to see the movie my parents wouldn't let me see in the movies in the movies (I have seen the film several times on TV, cable and DVD).

Its a minor classic film that rightly helped Grier become the person she is today.

After the film Pam Grier came out and did a brief Q&A. It was supposed to be longer but they didn't take into account the longer running time. Chocko recorded it and part one is here and part two is here.

Bare Behind Bars (1980)

Okay, hide this one from the kids... more so than all of the others. This is 95 minutes of sex and violence and sex and violence and sex and violence. This is probably the most watchable of the stereotypical genre when reduced to it's basest elements.

Despite doing a whole week of women in prison films I am not a fan of the genre. It has nothing to do with morals or scruples, rather it simply has to do with most of the films aren't very good. There isn't much you can really do with the basic plot of women in prison; it's either a true life social documentary or pure sleaze, and guess which one most of the films are?

Right, the sleazy kind.

That doesn't mean there haven't been some watchable and even good films, for example most of the Roger Corman produced films like Big Bird Cage are fun exploitation films in their own right (I'll be getting to those films at a later time.) And as you have seen the films this week have been of the sleazy variety, and yet on some level they have remained on some level watchable.even enjoyable if you allow yourself to disconnect from the good social graces and mores.

Bare Behind Bars on the other hand is pure trash. Watchable on some levels but pure trash. In it's way its one of the most violent, certainly the most sexually graphic of all of the films this week. Its also the genre reduced to it's most basic. Its a film that has no pretensions, it just is. It also knows enough not push things into ridiculousness beyond what is inherent to the genre.

The plot has the women in a prison rebelling against the cruel brutality. They are beaten and abused both by the staff and each other. They also have sex with the staff and each other. Eventually three women break free and make it to the big city in time for Carnival, but the police are right behind. There isn't more than that except the sex and violence.

Is it good?

It is watchable. As I said its the genre reduced down to it's most basic, something the other film aren't. In a genre that has more films that are so base that you wonder not only who makes these sort of films, but makes you seriously wonder about the audience, this is a film that won't require several showers to clean up after. Its certainly better than the director's Amazon Jail which is pretty unwatchable with it's bad acting, simplistic plot (women are brought to the jungle under false pretext and then sold) and other deficiencies.If you want a film that is in the so bad its bad territory see that film, or don't since you'll only shut it off after five minutes.

I know but is it good...?

Let me put it this way, it's the least of this weeks films and while I have made it all to the end, when doing a second viewing for this piece I did allow it to dissipate into background noise. I would watch any of the other films reviewed first.

Out on uncut and uncensored (ie.hardcore) from Blue Underground and in less graphic other versions from less reliable sources. The choice to watch is your own.

Womens Prison Massacre (1983)

A women in prison film unlike any other, its one with a seeming artistic bend. I mean how else do you explain an opening sequence that is a performance piece that’s being put on by the prisoners? The mind boggles.

The film stars Laura Gesmer as Emanuelle, yes that Emanuelle (or at least the one played by Gesmer in 10 other films), a reporter sent to prison on trumped up charges by a corrupt official. Once inside she finds out just how corrupt things are with guards abusing the inmates on the slightest provocation. With in the inmate population things are run by the blonde Albina, a psycho with bulging eyes and an appetite for destruction. To say that she and Emmanuelle don’t get along is an understatement. Things eventually come to a head when four guys on death row make a break and end up taking hostages (this last twist helps keep things interesting).

What sets this film apart from all the others women in prison films is the weird bend the film has. The prison guards are all in suits which seem to be some sort of cultish uniform. They don’t seem to be practical for watching prisoners. Several characters, guards and prisoners, have fabulously coffered hair. Albina’s hair seems more the sort of thing singer Grace Jones would have worn on stage back in the day. The prison seems to be an odd combination of impractical- say the seemingly unbarred windows mixed with the stereotypical, old style old style steel doors to keep people locked up. Its people and places that never would have anything to do with a real prison, I mean look at the sequences with the people outside the prison, they seem to have been shot in an industrial park instead of abeing outside a jail.

Watching the film I kept thinking what were these people thinking?

Then I remembered when the film was made and it weirdly all made sense, it’s a movie from the early 1980’s when filmmakers tried to reinvent things in a disco synthesizer driven style. There are any number of exploitation films from the period that look similar since producers wanted to seem like they were hip and happening and with “today’s” audiences. In most cases the need to be a reflection of early 80’s culture doomed the films from having any real life because they dated badly (not that the producers cared so long as they made money). Womens Prison Massacre strangely has gone beyond dating into some place timeless. This film is its own unique animal. Sure it hits all of typical, sleazy women in prison cliché’s but at the same time it dress them up to make something different, something that doesn’t really require repeated showers after you see it.

Womens Prison Massacre has been hailed by several women in prison aficionados I know as one of the best of the genre, I begrudgingly have to agree that its certainly one of the more watchable. I don’t know if that means the film is great, but I do know that it kept me awake several nights way past my bed time trying to simply see what happens. (I should say that the repeated viewings were the result of simply being too tired to make it to the end and not a need to see it on several nights running. I’d put the film on when I was getting ready for sleep only to find that I was too tired to go on, but I was some how gripped by what I was seeing that I tried to fight to the end only to fall asleep…at which point I’d wake up a hour or so after the film ended. I then would start it over the next night. It took me three nights but I made it to the end.)

If you are a fan of woman in prison films but you are tired of the same old same old T&A and violence course that most films in the genre take you may want to give this film a shot.