Video - WOMEN OF DEVIL'S ISLAND (1962)

For those keeping up with us on the Wild, Wild Podcast, this is the film we'll cover on the next episode. It is another fine example of why this overlooked genre deserves more attention. 

The Bloody Pit #124- TURKEY SHOOT (1982)

We’ve never before dug into the fertile field of Australian genre movies here on The Bloody Pit which means it is long overdue. The classic Ozploitation period is generally thought of has having lasted from the middle of the 1970’s to the late 1980’s which seems a short length of time until you look at the number of films that fall into this category. There are more than three dozen movies produced just in the 1980’s that comfortably fit under the Ozploitation umbrella with several worldwide hits like MAD MAX 2 (1982), ROAD GAMES (1981), RAZORBACK (1984) and DEAD-END DRIVE-IN (1986) being most well-known. Add to that list 70’s stunners such as MAD DOG MORGAN (1976), THE MAN FROM HONG KONG (1975), PATRICK (1978) and the ground breaking MAD MAX (1979) and it becomes clear that the Australian output of horror, action and post-apocalyptic cinema has had powerful, long lasting influence. But, in many cases, the Aussie versions of exploitation fodder was following the prevailing trends and copying successes as best they could. And that brings us to this movie! 

Director Brian Trenchard-Smith has described TURKEY SHOOT (1982) as a movie in which "1984 meets The Camp on Blood Island where they play 'The Most Dangerous Game'". If that isn’t a perfect enticement for curious, thrill-seeking movie goers I don’t know what could be! John Hudson and Bobby Hazzard join me for a rollicking discussion of this astonishing piece of sadistic insanity. We marvel at the actors willing to put themselves through this crazed scenario with emphasis on the pure hell of trying to shoot a film under very difficult circumstances. We toss around many strange metaphors as we attempt to describe the action of the story and have great fun watching people blow up real good! I’m not sure how but somehow Gilligan’s Island is invoked alongside a discussion of pants stuffed with raw meat and dummy deaths. Oh! And Bobby manages to make me do an actual spit-take! Waste of good beer, sadly. 

If you have any comments or questions thebloodypit@gmail.com is the email address for the show. Let us know what you think of TURKEY SHOOT or your favorite Ozploitation film. Should we cover more of them? Could be fun! Thank you for listening. 

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THE ARENA (1974) Poster Art

Because sometimes this is exactly the right kind of movie! 

WOMEN'S PRISON MASSACRE (1983)

I'm not sure what the heyday for Women in Prison movies was but I'm pretty sure that by 1983 the wave had crested. By then I assume that the conventions of the genre were in place and most interested moviegoers knew what to expect from such a film — there will be at least one wrongfully imprisoned inmate and she will invariably be the most attractive; the prison will be run by a hard-ass and possibly corrupt warden; there will be plenty of female nudity and at least some lesbian groping; and harsh girl-on-girl violence will erupt as often as it can be inserted into the plot. As long as these elements are in the movie, other things are negotiable. So its usually much more fun to track a film's success in juggling these elements than it is to quibble over the fact that one resembles another. The joys are in the details.

And so we come to Bruno Mattei's Women's Prison Massacre. Mattei (hiding behind one of his many pseudonyms) puts all his pieces in place and creates his usual derivative, trashy mess. I don't think there was an original bone in the guy's body but his ability to assemble a shambling Frankenstein, made up of parts ripped from other people's work, is almost unrivaled in its bold theft and entertainment value. Mattei's films are never good, but they are fun. This one is no exception.

The movie begins during a strange stage show being performed by three of the prison's inmates. Dressed seductively and painted up like mimes, the women spout autobiographical confessions in bizarre self-important monologues. This avant-garde act doesn't go over well with the prisoner audience; lead by the very touchy blonde firebrand Albina (Ursula Flores), a minor riot breaks out to end the show. Where all those fruits and vegetables came from to be thrown at the actors I have no idea, but it makes for a funny scene with plenty of flying tomatoes.

It turns out that this play was written by inmate Emanuelle (Laura Gemser). She was given permission to stage the show by the warden, Colleen (Lorraine De Selle), who is now quite angered by the reaction. You'd think she would have thought about this before letting the inmates see it. Now she insists the dialog must be cut and toned down or there will be no more shows. Here we learn that Emanuelle is a crusading journalist, imprisoned by a corrupt district attorney named Robinson for getting too close to his criminal enterprises. It's also obvious that this Emanuelle is supposed to be the same one played by Gemser in the loose series of "Black Emanuelle" films made from 1976 to the early 1980s. I was a little surprised by this, as I was unaware of this movie's connection to the character, but it fits in neatly with the others and Gemser is always pleasing to see. I have begun to wonder just how many official and unofficial Black Emanuelle films there were, though... I've seen about 10 and they just keep on coming — if you know what I mean!

Well, just when you think the focus of Women's Prison Massacre is going to be the trials of putting on a brilliant piece of high-minded performance art in a prison hellhole, the story shifts. Or lurches, rather. Albina definitely has it in for Emanuelle and her fellow actors. As play performers Irene (Antonella Giacomini) and Laura (Maria Romano) are enjoying some lesbian heavy petting in the communal showers, the enraged blonde stomps off and alerts the guards. These guards slap the two lovers around and hold their heads underwater much to Albina's delight. Emanuelle complains to the warden about the incident but since the guards claim they did nothing wrong, it stops there. Emboldened by this success, Albina arranges with the guards to have some time alone with Emanuelle and attacks her in the showers. Humorously, Albina's fighting skills are sorely lacking and E puts the smackdown on her easily, pulling her blonde wig off in the process.

At this point we are witness to the warden taking a phone call from corrupt D.A. Robinson, insuring him that Emanuelle will be done away with very soon. Proving she's dumber than she looks, Albina tries again to kill E, this time with a knife, while both the guards and the warden look on. Once again E kicks the crap out of the lunatic and ends things by burying the knife in her opponent's thigh. As the screaming, cursing woman is dragged away to the infirmary Emanuelle is returned to her cell, smile firmly in place. Further attempts to have the reporter die by inmate violence are postponed when the warden receives word of an emergency. Four vicious male prisoners were being transported to the prison to be held for a few days (prior to their executions) when their partners made a bid to spring them. In the resultant gun battle two cops were killed and the van they were traveling in was wrecked. The lone surviving cop (Carlo De Mejo) manages to get the criminals to the women's jail, but as they're being placed in cells the four men gain the upper hand, taking the warden and the now wounded cop hostage. They close off the cellblock (with its dozen or so inmates) and start issuing demands.

From here on the film is a prison siege story, with the police trying to end things without more death and the inmates inside indulging in whatever nastiness they wish with the trapped female prisoners. The four men are a fine bunch of bastards, too. Gemser's real-life husband and frequent co-star Gabriele Tinti plays "Crazy Boy", the brains of the group. He gets the cops outside to give him a walkie-talkie and makes his standard three demands: $5 Million in small bills, a getaway car and safe passage out of the country. Of course, he might as well have asked for the letter M to be stricken from the English language, but he seems content. His gives them a three hour deadline and then the sadistic fun begins.

Anyone conversant with the genre can guess the end point from here but with Mattei it's always a question of just how perverse he will get before the credits roll. In this one he gets pretty damned perverse! Even before we get to the rape, razor blades in vaginas and SWAT team assaults the film has already laid the crazy card on the table. Irene has a male blow up doll she sleeps with and the prison appears to be in a poorly kept medieval palace. Even goofier, the film tries hard to pretend it's taking place in California even though its European locale is obvious in everything from the cars to the buildings to the countryside. I seriously doubt that any U.S. police department has ever fielded a subcompact cruiser, much less one with an extension cord running up to power the rooftop lights. And I was laughing out loud at the high level police officer's uniforms with more decorations and braid than a dress parade general.

But all this stuff is part of the fun of a silly, guilty pleasure like this. Say what you will about Mattei's lack of skill in most areas of filmmaking, but the man knew his lowbrow targets. Even as he steals something so plainly as the Russian Roulette scene from The Deer Hunter he manages to add a gory note to things that can't help but produce either a shudder or a laugh depending on your tastes. For trash connoisseurs there is some real fun to be had with Women's Prison Massacre. All others would be best warned off.

HOUSE OF WHIPCORD (1974)

House of Whipcord begins on a rainy dark night somewhere in the English countryside. A beautiful but obviously distressed young woman is stumbling along a roadway. She almost collides with a parked truck and when the driver helps her inside he discovers that the poor girl has been beaten terribly with a whip. As the good Samaritan sets off to find a hospital the film flashes backwards in time to show us how this woman has come to be in this awful state.

We find French émigré Ann-Marie (Penny Irving) at a trendy art scene party in London where she is a minor celebrity because of her recent arrest for public nudity. Although the public indecency was done as part of a modeling job she is a little ashamed of what happened and even the lauds of her friends can't cheer her up. Lurking at the party is Marc (Robert Tayman), a handsome young man who takes her mind off her troubles and asks her out on a dinner date. At dinner Marc is charming but also demonstrates a hidden dark side when he frightens Ann-Marie with a closed-eyes game of tactile distress. This should have warned the lonely girl off but she seems to need some kind of relationship and so dismisses the incident. When Marc declines her offer of spending the night at her place she is surprised when he instead asks her to join him the next weekend to meet his mother in the country. Ann-Marie's roommate and fellow model Julia (Ann Michelle) is concerned about her friend but wishes her well on her trip. Julia has her own problems and is preoccupied by her married boyfriend's insistence on delaying leaving his wife.

The trip to Marc's mum's home is a good deal longer than Ann-Marie had anticipated, and when they finally arrive she's ushered into the gated and locked compound of an old jail. Immediately the girl is divested of her clothes, her luggage and her dignity as she is brought before an elderly blind judge. She's informed that she has been found guilty of flouting public decency for her public nude display. The judge explains that they have set up this private house of corrections for the public good. Their goal is to hold people responsible for crimes that the permissive English courts punish too laxly. Strict moral uprightness is their objective and the only solace offered in this prison is a Bible placed in each small cell. The newest convict has the situation explained by her cellmate, another girl imprisoned on moral charges. The jail is looked after by only three older women; there are five other inmates and discipline is harsh. First offense merits a stay in solitary, the second infraction results in a beating with the titular whipcord, and strike three... you're out. Execution by hanging is the ultimate penalty and one that every single inmate has somehow met so far. The place is run by Mrs. Whitehurst (Barbara Markham), an obviously insane woman obsessed with morality and tormented by her past. She blames all her life's failures on the loss of her position as governess of a real prison years before — a loss having to do with the death of a female French inmate much like Ann-Marie.

While only two other women are employed as jailers, their care in dealing with the prisoners has made escape impossible. They seem just as deluded as Mrs. Whitehurst if not as mad, and at least one (Sheila Keith) appears to be a lesbian with a streak of sadistic self-hatred. Sadism turns out to be the rule of the place as we learn that Marc is Whitehurst's illegitimate son whose sadistic tendencies are encouraged by dear old mum. Not only is Marc used to lure wicked ladies to the trap but also once mother fixates on Ann-Marie he entices her to make an escape attempt. This leads to her quickly making strikes one and two with little hope of ever seeing the outside world again.

This is a surprisingly good film. Its low budget never interferes with the story and even manages to add a sense of malice to the proceeding at times. This is a fine example of meager means used effectively to make a solid movie. House of Whipcord sets itself up with a wink at the audience when it opens with a text passage decrying the fallen moral state of modern society. Anyone that thinks this is to be taken literally will be sorely and amusingly disappointed. The film is an attack on the simpleminded moralism of those who would wish to impose their views on society with poor Ann-Marie as an example of the folly of putting religious judgments into law. Ann-Marie is clearly a naive young girl searching for comfort and trying to find her way when she is abducted and tortured. She feels embarrassed by her actions and is a far cry from the kind of evil creature of lust that the self-appointed court is set up to punish. Of course, the fact that this system only seeks to punish women is the classic form of condemnation strait out of the Old Testament Bible. Remember, it was always the women who were stoned to death for adultery, not the men. This Biblical view of forcing women to act as scapegoats for all sin shows up in Whipcord starkly as the moralists don't even consider going after the male photographer who took the nude photos. Punishing men is never even considered by the jailers, as if Eve were the only sinner and her punishment the only concern. The system set up by this small coven of moralistic outlaws is, sadly, exactly the kind of religiously intolerant thing I see calls for every other week to this day. That director Pete Walker and his writers were seeing this type of moronic hypocrisy in swinging London is not as shocking to me as it is to notice that we are currently in another up cycle of the same thing now in America. With this kind of dark story is a downbeat ending any surprise?

I've only seen a few of director Walker's films but I've been surprised by their high quality. Especially here, he shows not only an eye for interesting ideas but a strong visual flair too. His shot composition is often clever and the film is very well edited with a remarkably fine story flow. In the last half-hour of the film Ann-Marie's roommate Julia begins a search for her and the juggling of these two narratives is handled brilliantly. The film never feels rushed but it moves very well. This is journeyman craftsmanship on display in a way that makes many more recent horror films look both poorly conceived and sloppy. I look forward to working my way through Pete Walker's films in the future.

CAGED! (1950)

I have to be honest and admit that my entry point for the Women In Prison film genre was at the sleazy end of the spectrum. I caught the grubby little Linda Blair movie Chained Heat (1983) on cable in my long ago youth and was suitably appalled – appalled enough to watch it in stunned horror at least three more times. So as I grew older and saw more of these types of movies my idea of what a WIP film would or could be became solidified around the 1970's and 80's version of the genre. I'm sure you'll forgive me if I thought that they were little more than delivery mechanisms for visions of various forms of lesbian sexual activity, shower room violence, petty torture acts and other harsh bits of business. Yeah, yeah- the occasional film might make noises about reforming the horrible conditions on display but mostly the filmmakers were just wallowing in gratuitous exploitative excess in the name of making a buck. Not that there is anything wrong with that, in my opinion. But imagine my surprise when I first encountered older WIP movies that couldn't fall back on showing a shower roomful of naked, large-breasted ladies. What would be the draw? Wouldn't the lack of such graphic elements cripple the film? What the hell is this? A film about women locked up in a prison that actually has a good script? How did this happen?

Caged! (1950) tells the sad story of 19 year old Marie Allen (Eleanor Parker). She has been sentenced to a stretch in prison because of a bungled armed robbery committed by her husband who was killed during the act. She insists that she had nothing to do with crime but she was convicted as an accessory nevertheless. To make matters for her worse, her prison entrance physical determines that she is two months pregnant meaning she will give birth while incarcerated. Marie has trouble adjusting to the harsh world of the women's prison and struggles to find people she can trust. She meets professional shoplifter Kitty Stark (Betty Garde) who says once Marie gets out, Kitty will get her a job is her line of work. Kitty recruits for organized crime on the outside and promises the young girl an easy life if she learns this criminal trade. Marie does not want to get involved in crime, but Kitty explains the realities of prison life clearly and events prove the 'booster' right. It is explained to her that she can be paroled after nine months, but over time Marie sees prisoner after prisoner being granted parole but then not released from jail because no job has been arranged by their parole officers. After one such prisoner kills herself the reality of her situation begins to become apparent. Adding to her despair is the sadistic matron Evelyn Harper (Hope Emerson) who decides to single Marie out for attention when she refuses to play along with her money making schemes. By the time Marie gives birth to a healthy baby and is forced by the state to grant full custody to her mother she has a small bit of hope that she will be granted a parole to be with her child. But when her mother gives the baby up for adoption against Marie's will she snaps and makes a feeble try at escape.

Unlike many films of the genre, the prison in Caged has an authority figure that is actually sympathetic to the plight of the ladies under her care. The great Agnes Moorhead plays Ruth Benton, the reformist prison superintendent trying to get evidence against the cruel Harper while simultaneously attempting  help the prisoners find a pathway out of their dead end lives. Benton is as lenient with Marie as she can be but soon she has to punish her when her actions become less justifiable and more like her more hardened cellmates. When the now toughened Marie emerges from a moth in solitary she finally takes violent action against Harper and shows that she has given up hope of following the straight an narrow path to parole. She's going to get out of prison no matter what she has to do on once she is on the outside.

Although I might have expected the reformist slant taken by this film, I wasn't expecting a 1950 movie to be so daring in talking about the nastier aspects of prison life. All the mean spirited subjects that I have come to expect from later entries in the genre are here. Yes, they have to turn away from gratuitously showing the lesbian relationships and vicious violent acts but those events are in the story and not hidden behind the prudish restrictions I expected. This is a classic social commentary film and it firmly places the blame on the prison system for turning Marie into a career criminal but it still manages to show that she chooses the easiest way out of her predicament. I was surprised by the ending of this movie and pleased by its high quality across the board. Caged is a very good film regardless of what you might think of prison stories and this might be the film to introduce new viewers to Women In Prison movies. It gives a sense of the unforgiving nature of the genre while saving the harder stuff for later. 

RICA (1972)

I don't know much about the "Pinky Violence" genre of Japanese women's revenge movies but I know what I like. And if this is a good example of them then I'm a big fan! Other than the Female Prisoner 701 films I've seen very little of this strange genre and was warned that not all were of the quality of those artistic movies. It's true that Rica doesn't have the high art aspirations of those films but it more than makes up for it by being a relentless, speeding bullet of a tale. Exhilarating and eventually exhausting, Rica is an amazing 'motion picture' with very little time spent without our athletic star either in action or in a tricky situation requiring her to devise an escape. And the nudity helps as well. Not so much the singing...

The time is the early 1970s as we are introduced to half-Japanese Rika Aoki playing (of course) Rica — leader of a small gang of tough girls with yakuza connections. The illegitimate daughter of a woman raped by American GIs, she's grown up as an outsider with a considerable amount of anger directed at the world. Raped herself at a young age by one of her prostitute mother's customers, she certainly has little love for men. So it's easy to understand why, as the film begins, she takes it upon herself to beat the hell out of a low level gangster who'd gotten a girl pregnant but left her on her own. After the girl dies in childbirth, Rica takes the infant's corpse to him and demands he bury the child. During the brawl that ensues the gangster is killed and Rica is sent for her first visit to a prison-like reform school. She is slipped notes from the outside informing her that the rest of her gang has been sold into sex slavery in South Vietnam. The actual turn of phrase used is a sneering "to be fed to the GIs" — that image of girls being imprisoned, used and discarded reoccurs constantly in the film.

Rica makes her first of many breaks form the reform school, extorts ¥3,000,000 from the businessman who raped her and tries to use the money to buy back her friends. The gang boss she deals with, however, is less than honorable (imagine that!) and only through the violent intervention of loner good guy Tetsu (Fuminori Sato) is she able to escape.

The gangsters seek revenge on Tetsu by kidnapping his girlfriend as bait. But Rica thanks her new buddy by striking a deal with yakuza boss Tachibana (Yoshiro Nakadai), in which Rica agrees to dance nude at his nightclub in exchange for the girl's freedom. Strange I know, but in the world of this film it actually makes sense. At least until you realize she sings as well as dances! Some things are more bizarre than others.

Some time after this, Rica learns that her long-absent mother has been spotted working in a nearby department store. But while there looking for her only parent our Amerasian heroine sees one of Tachibana's goons steal secret government papers from an older man. Tachibana doesn't trust Rica to keep silent and orders her killed but he fails to reckon with her feminine wiles. She seduces the thief sent to murder her, cuts off his hand and delivers it to the crime lord to throw it in his face. This leads to another fierce battle and soon Rica is off to reform school again. At a certain point I actually lost track of the number of times Rica escapes from the school. You'd have thought they might have realized she was going to get out somehow and just chain her to a tree or something. But I guess that might have gummed up the plot.

Once back on the outside she finds that the man who raped her as a child is the new gangster running girls to Vietnam. Rica manages to kidnap the man from his legitimate business office and reunite him with her mother, his old lover, who is now ravaged by venereal disease and near death. Using this situation to get the name of the ship being used to transport girls to Vietnam, Rica and Tetsu gather friends and plan an assault to free the women.

Believe it or not this is the short-form story detail for this film. There is so much plot crammed into this 90 minutes that it has the feel of an adaptation of a series of stories compacted down with just the good parts retained for maximum effect. And boy, are there plenty of good parts! An endless stream of fist fights, sex scenes, gun fights, prison breaks, nude dancing, car chases, criminal conniving, ridiculous coincidences and last minute rescues race by so fast its hard to keep track. The movie just keeps coming at you. I don't think I could really call Rica a great movie but it definitely kept me glued to the screen and smiling. Not that there aren't quite a few nastier elements that would make the average inexperienced exploitation viewer squirm. Most of the female characters get raped, only two of the male characters are better than scum and the unhappy fate of several characters is gruesome. But that is the nature of this particular beast. Vicious and cruel, just like the central characters, the Pinky Violence movies showcase a breed of women that were far from the norm at the time the films were made. Rica herself is a perfect example of what I guess would be a nightmare for the very male-dominated culture of Japan. Half Caucasian, taller than most of the men around her, violent and demanding the same freedoms men command, Rica would almost certainly strike fear into people on sight. Add to that a fierce desire for revenge and you have one of the scariest 'juvenile delinquent' concepts imaginable. And the wellspring for dozens of movies!

Jess Franco poster art - Part 12!

As I get older I find myself enjoying Women In Prison films more and more. I think it was Franco's 99 WOMEN that actually made my attitude turn from indifferent to fan. What an odd realization.

Franco Watch - BARBED WIRE DOLLS (1975)

Watched the second in my personal Jess Franco film fest tonight and didn’t come away too displeased. BARBED WIRE DOLLS is another of his Women in Prison stories that almost makes you impressed with his ability to conjure something out of nothing. Obviously shot on abandoned ruins someplace where the local government doesn’t care to keep up appearances the film has a minimal cast running through the same old standard plot. Various gorgeous ladies spend 80% of their time un- or under-dressed, being tortured in various ways and plotting an escape from the prison. There is the sadistic female warden, the sympathetic male doctor, the poor kind hearted guard and the high level government official in on the deal. If there had been an undercover journalist it would have hit every cliché of the genre. Since it’s a Franco film from the 70s Lina Romey plays one of the prisoners as a cute and nude woman imprisoned for a crime she didn’t commit. Did I mention that cliché?


Whatever enjoyment you can take from this type of movie depends on your ability to go with the flow. There are no real surprises with a WIP film after you’ve seen a couple of them so the only joy comes in either shocking excesses, strange variations on the themes I’ve mentioned or bizarre casting choices. Here the variation on a theme is that Lina’s character is innocent of her crime but doesn’t know it! And she never learns this fact either. Also, the ending is particularly downbeat with good folks dead and the evil people alive and well. I think the best of Franco’s WIP movies I’ve seen would have to be 99 WOMEN (1969) which hit most of the genre tropes but also had a better than average script. BARBED WIRE DOLLS’ story could be laid out on a bar napkin and I seriously doubt there was ever a complete script for the actors to reference. I got some pleasure from my viewing because of the beauty of the ladies on display and the amusement of checking the cliché boxes as it meandered along but I wouldn’t recommend the film to most folks. If you must see a Jess Franco WIP movie go with 99 WOMEN but if you are a jaded exploitation film nut check out both.