WOMEN IN PRISON TRIPLE FEATURE

From Panik House Entertainment, comes a set comprising of three of the most notorious WiP flicks of the 1980s. Well, one of the most notorious flicks, an undervalued also-ran, and a film that doesn’t really belong here – but is great fun anyway.

Disc one is home to the near-legendary CHAINED HEAT.

In it, Carol (Linda Blair) arrives as a "fish" at a tough all-women prison. She’s there to do an 18-month stretch, for accidentally killing a man in her car. Hardened convict Val (Sharon Hughes) shows that she has a heart beneath her cold exterior, and takes the quivering young Carol in.

Which is lucky for Carol, as a few people have their sights set on her. First, there’s Ericka (Sybil Danning), who runs their wing by selling drugs, beating up moles and shagging whoever she likes. Then there’s Duchess (Tamara Dobson), leader of a gang of black inmates who are traditionally rivals of Ericka’s. She warns Carol away from Ericka and insists on looking out for her.

But they’re just other prisoners. Perhaps the biggest threats lie on the other side of the bars: vindictive Taylor (Stella Stevens), the head screw who is just itching to lay down the law at the merest excuse, and the prison governor Bacman (the brilliant John Vernon) – who likes to fuck inmates in his office hot tub, filming his antics in the process.

Bacman has a mole in the prison, a fellow inmate who he affords perks to in exchange for information that he hopes will help him find who is smuggling drugs inside. But when Ericka gets wind of this, the unfortunate mole ends up garrotted. Which leads to Bacman leaning on Carol, wanting her to become his next mole.

She knows better than to play ball, fearing of what will happen to her if and when Ericka finds out. This results in three things: (a) Carol does not endear herself to Bacman, leading to serious repercussions later on, (b) drugs keep getting filtered into the prison (allowing for a wonderful cameo from the supremely sleazy Henry Silva), and (c) we get a better film.

While the plot is pure bunkum and often unnecessarily confused by Aaron Butler and director Paul Nicholas’ screenplay, it does at least remember to take in all the expected ingredients of WiP cinema: shower scenes, a little bit of lesbianism, rape, a prison riot and of course some good old-fashioned cat fights.

With a Joseph Conlan score that at times sounds like Brad Fielding’s from the following year’s THE TERMINATOR, and more curly perms than you’d find at a poodle parlour, the stench of its 1983 origins runs throughout CHAINED HEAT.

But with a fast pace, some choice dialogue ("Listen up, fuckfaces!") and a great cast including Vernon and Silva both in full-on slimeball mode, this is a curiously engrossing slice of clichéd trash. What helps the film the most is its high camp quotient: the whole thing is played with a nod and a wink in the audience’s direction.

CHAINED HEAT is presented uncut in its original aspect ratio, and is enhanced for 16x9 television sets. Colours are bright and blacks are solid, but images are somewhat soft on occasion. The transfer, though mostly clean, definitely shows its age.

English mono audio is clear and consistent throughout.

The disc opens with an animated main menu page. From there, a static scene-selection menu allows access to the main feature via 12 chapters.

Extras begin with the film’s enjoyable 2-minute theatrical trailer.

Two featurettes are sure to provide indispensible entertainment for die-hard fans. The first is an 11-minute interview with Stevens. She looks good for her age and speaks rather ironically about the production. The second sees Danning on fine form (hmm, has she had work done?), discussing her own involvement in the film.

Mr Skin pops up to narrate a redundant optional 1-minute introduction to the film, which is essentially an advert for his own celebrity nudies website.

Over on disc 2, a static main menu page offers access to either RED HEAT or JUNGLE WARRIORS.

RED HEAT – full onscreen title RED HEAT: UNSCHULD HINTER GITTERN, and not to be confused with the Arnie actioner also from the late 80s - is a cracker, an underrated Euro production from director Robert Collector.

This sees Blair as Christine, an American student who travels to Germany to be with her soldier fiancé Mike (William Ostrander). He takes her to a remote chateau where they make love, and then he tells her over dinner that he’s changed his mind about leaving the army.

Pissed off, Christine takes a walk alone outside their stately accommodation and stumbles upon a spy being bundled into the back of a van. A classic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Christine is spotted by the aggressors and also taken along for the ride.

In a case of mistaken identity, she is subsequently hauled before a kangaroo court on charges of espionage and given a 3-year sentence in a tough German prison.

This prison is a lot grimmer than the one featured in CHAINED HEAT (that looks like a TV movie in comparison). Here, the walls are deathly grey and the female wardens are proper ugly bastards.

But those are the least of Christine’s concerns: she’s almost immediately witness to enforced lesbian sessions, and quickly learns to beware of insatiable rapist, fellow inmate Sofia (Sylvia Kristel).

Made back in a time when filmmakers thought it was a good idea to have Tangerine Dream provide their score, RED HEAT is chock-full of crappy dialogue and crappier hairdos – as well as a stilted pace that never truly sets off.

But this is oddly more watchable than CHAINED HEAT, such is its truly murky feel. There’s a lot more nudity for a start (particularly from Blair, whose nude scenes are comparatively discreet in the former) and the violence has a more authentic feel to it.

Gone is the soap opera smugness of CHAINED HEAT. And, while that was enjoyable, this is a harder hitting, more memorable film as a result. Even with that stilted pace.

Finally we get to JUNGLE WARRIORS, from Ernst R von Theumer.

A stupefying tale of fashion models who are flown out to the Amazon jungle for a photo shoot, only for their plane to get shot down by a local drug baron’s henchmen, this is a ridiculously enjoyable piece of late 80s shit that boasts a fantastic cast: Sybil Danning, John Vernon, Woody Strode ...

Performances, script, action set-pieces, choreography – everything about the film is ludicrous. Perhaps, most of all, the hideous disco rock track that opens proceedings.

But if you also spent a lot of the late 80s vegging out on trashy straight-to-VHS action films like I did, you’re sure to be watching this with a smile on your face too. It’s almost what THE EXPENDABLES should have been.

What’s it’s not, is a WiP film ...

Both films are presented in 16x9 widescreen with English mono audio and static scene-selection menus. Picture quality in both cases is generally good, but soft at times.

Extras include optional 1-minute introductions to each film from Mr Skin, and the original theatrical trailers (2 minutes 40 seconds for RED HEAT; 1 minute 36 seconds for JUNGLE WARRIORS).

It’s a pity the set didn’t contain the unofficial sequel CHAINED HEAT 2, starring Brigitte Nielsen, but you can’t have it all.

Panik House Entertainment’s set is a great collection of remastered, uncut films that fans of the WiP genre should lap up.

Review by Stuart Willis