Welcome to SEX HELL!

TRUE STORY OF A WOMAN IN JAIL: SEX HELL (1975)
D. Koyu Ohura

Impulse Pictures/ Synapse

This is the second release in the Impulse Pictures line of Nikkatsu Romano Porno releases after the intense and outrageous DEBAUCHERY. This one is not as outright bugfuck crazy as that one, but still manages to climb some heights of sexuality that are unseen in American product, so it will hit the spot for sleaze fans. But what SEX HELL does indeed offer is a more complex story, and richer characters than the standard fair, making it the odd film out in the Women in Prison genre.

The film takes its ques from the FEMALE PRISONER SCORPION films that were popular at the time in Japan (and I believe also being made at Nikkatsu) where a tough, unbreakable women enters a woman's prison and all hell breaks loose with lots of action ensuing. Here we have a similar story, where a quiet, unshakable woman entering with a group of new criminals into a all female prison, only to soon clash with the gritty already established criminal hierarchy there. In a very early scene (after of course a nude cavity search and the obligatory showers) there is a topless fight and our lead gal is held down and has her face pissed on to show she has been dominated. I can't recall having ever seen that in any other WIP movie from any other country! Another girl is put into solitary confinement for days on end as her toilet backs up and we clearly see her shit all over  the room.These are the kinds of boundaries being pushed here.

The first half of the movie is where the majority of the sex happens, we get some of the the expected lesbian romps, with lots of nipple close ups filling the screen, and a few flashbacks to give us some hetero couplings as well. But about the middle of the movie it shifts gears and we start getting flashbacks to why the girls are actually in the prison. The movie starts to become rather tragic, as we learn the most of them are victims of circumstance. Men have fucked them over, used them and abused them, letting them take the fall. By the third act it becomes a women on the run/revenge pic with the sex taking a back seat completely, and a pretty satisfying little revenge picture at that. 

SEX HELL is a great example of why the Nikkatsu Romano Porno films were successful. They took formula ideas such as the Women In Prison pictures and infused them with the over the top sexuality the studio was known for, but then went way out of the way to make sure they delivered as films too. They delivered characters you could care about, with performers that could carry those characters (even though SEX HELL has no real name stars from the Nikkatsu stable) and in this case threw in a hefty dose of crime action as well. These movies are just trying to make you love them, and most of the time if you aren't easily offended (and why would you buy this title if you are) you WILL fall for their charms.

Review © Andrew Copp

HALLOWEEN Horror Challenge Oct 02nd Pt 2: HUMAN EXPERIMENTS

HUMAN EXPERIMENTS (1980) AKA - BEYOND THE GATE

D. Gregory Goodell
VHS (Supposedly Coming on DVD From Code Red - Some day)






Linda Haynes plays a country western singer who ends up running afoul in a small redneck town and gets blamed for a particularly savage multiple murder. Because of this she ends up doing a life sentence in a women's prison slash sanitarium where the warden is doing bazaar behavior modification experiments using the inmates.


After a truly gripping opening ten minutes where Haynes stumbles on the house filled with fresh dead bodies and a teen boy waiting with a shotgun that she is forced to kill in self defense, the movie slows down and changes gears. There is some really unsettling scenes when we first get into the prison establishing how far degenerated several of the clearly experimented on inmates are as well as a humiliating bit of preparation by the guards and nurses. But after that it is really dull going for a looooong stretch of time. Nothing scary happens, and nothing sleazy really happens either for a good half hour, making this neither work as a horror film or a women in prison flick. Not until a prisoner hangs themselves at the 45 minute mark and then Haynes masturbates with her own tears about ten minutes later does the movie hit any kind of peak. After about the hour mark that great low budget bugaboo the crappy performing band makes an appearance, this time no name band called SATAN AND THE LUCIFERS! I also forgot to mention the creepster opening moment when bar owner Aldo Ray tries to get her to make it with him and she refuses and he calls her a cunt. Super classy guy.

A lot does need to be said for Linda Haynes performance though as she is quite good with the limited material going for the slow burn breakdown. Geoffrey Lewis is creepy as shit as the doctor running the joint too, with lots of scenes of his eyes filling the frame as he looks through the metal slats that peek into the doors on the solitary confinement rooms or or as he talks about his entomology hobbies.

Unfortunately the movie feels endlessly padded with lots of scenes of the women eating in the mess hall, or working in the fields, or sleeping. Yes we get it, they are in prison but the movie needs to get on with the storyline , not lingering around waiting for something to happen.


Finally in the last fifteen to twenty minutes the movie takes off and begins to move along and take shape. As Haynes character attempts to escape the prison, the film turns inside out and literally becomes a vivid horror film. She begins to find bodies of other inmates who have been part of the experiments and hallucinate her worst fears. By the end we realize the full extent o the awful things the doctor is doing to his patients and with the full cooperation of the other inmates.

By no means a successful film, but there is a mean streak throughout HUMAN EXPERIMENTS that makes it fascinating, and there is certainly pieces and parts that are undeniably effective. Too bad this is a movie that is not as strong as a whole as it is in parts. If only that midsection could be tightened up this could be a really good movie. The opening is great and the last twenty minutes are solid. But the midsection is very hard to get through.


Review © Andrew Copp

Erik Estrada teaches us life lessons

Day sixteen of the September Exploitation Challenge saw my buddy Nick and I really taking the plunge with an Erik Estrada Double Feature! Hell Yeah!

CAGED FURY (1989)
D. Bill Milling
????
1.66

Now there are two movies with this title. One is from the early 80’s and was a shot in Manilla women in prison flick. This was made later and is also a WIP movie but is filled with B-movie actors, then current scream queens and low level porn stars and a skimming the surface level of scumminess that is satisfying, but never truly ugly.  Call it WIP light for the fans just discovering the sub-genre.

Roxxanne Michaels stars as Katie Collins a young and fairly stupid woman who wants to go to Los Angels to be an actress. Naturally against the wishes of her tight assed Father played by Michael Parks. But her world wise sister Tracy (Elenda Sahagen) convinces Pops to let her go. 



Now in the opening scene we have already seen a really nasty all girl prison in which the women are all forced to live in their skimpy (and sexy) lingerie. We have seen one try to escape and she is hunted down and done in by big bad Paul Smith. So we just know that it is only a matter of time before these two worlds are going to collide. 

 "Seriously, when you are done taking out my trash I want you to help me get INTO prison!"

Katie meets up with a streetwise hoebag named Rhonda who in turn introduces her to her boyfriend who is an amateur photographer. He claims he has gotten the girls “auditions” with a big time movie producer. But as it turns out that big time producer is a low life nudie movie scum bag that makes those in the old H.G. Lewis movies look sedate. The girls try to do auditions where they are put through some mild seduction scenes, but balk at getting nekkid. They are roughed up a bit and the cops get called. But it is the girls who are hauled away, taken to court and then to prison for propositioning the old dudes! Doh! They are off to the prison in the beginning!


Oh yeah I forgot to mention that Katie also met a former cop played by, wait for it, Erik motherfuckin Estrada! And his muscle bound Hulk like side kick. These guys kick and entire bar’s ass when they try to dip some skin into Katie’s love pond. And when I say kick the bar’s ass, I mean every person, stick of furniture, wall, brick and bottle of booze in the place. Nothing is left standing when muscles boy is done. And naturally old Erik is the one who gets the bonus love for the hard work. 

 "Someone told me I could find eager babes with low self esteem in here for my new movies..."

So naturally these two guys aren’t happy that their new squeeze has disappeared. But at the prison they are clever. Yes sir. They force Katie to call home and tell pops that she is away in Mexico filming a blockbuster for the next two months. But no one believes that shit. Soon Traci has gotten herself thrown in the pokey too trying to find her sister. Before long they have been given prison requisition white  negligees and are taking looooong hot showers with the other inmates. Naturally the warden is a hot horny lesbian (played by super hot Ty Randolph and the character’s name is Sybil Thorne if that tells you a thing or two about where the filmmakers are coming from) who prefers nice baths with the new inmates. Then there is the guard named Spyder played by porn actor Scott Cummins who loves nothing more than to torment the girls and take them to the “quiet room”. 



It all leads to Muscle guy literally tearing his way into the place while the girls are being auctioned off to the highest bidder and doing his thing. His thing being literally beating the holy shit out of every atom of physical matter on screen.  This includes Ron Jeremy in a cameo appearance. If you blink you might miss then super hot porno babe Janine Lindamoulder as a dancing bar babe too. 


This is pretty much typical late 80’s prime sleaze. It doesn’t make a lick of sense, and never tires too. It is filled to the overflowing point with nekkid babes, implanted boobs, incredible aerobacized butts and poofy 80’s teased hair. Almost every scene has a blue filter on all the lights. When ever things threaten to get really nasty in a sexually violent way, something happens to stop it, so none of the women are ever really abused. So while it is typical misogynist WIP stuff, it is never as nasty as say, some of the Italian import ones. Plus it has Erik Estrada in pink shirts trying to be a tough guy. That takes it up a notch right there.  

NIGHT OF THE WILDING (1990)
D. Joseph Merhi
Universal Home Video/ PM Entertainment
Full Screen


This was the second feature in our Erik Estrada Double feature on Saturday night. (Oh yeah we WENT THERE!) As produced and directed by Joseph Merhi and Richard Peppin I expected this to be a much more action packed and sleazy ride into street wise dementia. Turns out it was that duo's attempt at doing a “straight” courtroom thriller. But it still has a very sleazy, nasty, opening act, and a ridiculous finale. 


Based on the “Wilding” scare of 1989/90 where teens went crazy in New York and Sacramento going on violence and rape sprees just for the kicks and fun of it. This was one of the topical scare movies so popular on home video in that era. Erik Estrada plays a sleazebag lawyer who typically gets the worst of the worst criminals off on technicalities. When the movie opens he has just gotten a mob hit man off on a murder charge the whole world knows he actually committed.  That same night three rich kids try to kill a security guard at a local small town grocery store and follow the cashier home. She is having a small birthday party, so they easy convince her sister to let them in claiming to be friends from work. Once inside the beat up the sister’s boyfriend with ball bats, gang-rape the sister And eventually rape (off screen) the girl. The girl never hears any of the mayhem because she is in the shower. the whole scene is played for the ultimate in skeeziness as it should be nasty and shocking, but keeps cutting back to the teen girl in the shower soaping up her breasts, over and over, clearly trying to wedge in as much skin as possible. Knowing full well there will be no other opportunities for nudity in the rest of the flick. 

The boys are arrested inside the house and the rest of the movie is a court battle between Estrada and his former wife turned Sates attorney who is fighting against him. It is fairly standard stuff, except we get to see some dirty tricks Lawyers do like making the accused get community volunteer jobs to look like better people. Eventually the little dregs snap and decide they gotta start killing witnesses, and eventually each other, leading to a foot chase, out of no where, spectacular car crash, and twist ending. 

 "The hot Kathryn Lautner plays Estrada's long suffering ex wife."

Over all it is okay. The acting is never that bad, except for Joey Travolta who is over acting his way out of his sibling’s shadow. But once the nasty first act is over it settles into TV movie of the week stuff without much need to go beyond it. The Merhi/ Peppin combo usually went for loud, brash and hyper violent exploitation movies straight to the tape market, but this appears to have been their attempt to go legit. They were better off when they were being outlaws.

Review © Andy Copp

This is not a trailer for the movie NIGHT OF THE WILDING but another flick that came out around the same time with a similar plot that was also exploiting the whole WILDING craze. I'd LOVE to get my hands on this one!!!