Scott LeBrun There's no getting around it: this one is trash of the most wretched, yet irresistible, variety. It takes two existing movies - "Orinoco: Prigioniere del Sesso" and "Femmine Infernali" (both 1980) - and tries to combine them into one "story". This story deals with scantily clad female prisoners in South America who are forced into being slave labour, and searching for emeralds. Some mercenaries come to their aid.About 10 minutes of new framing material was shot featuring Linda Blair, who didn't want to deceive people into thinking she was the star, despite being prominently featured in the promotional materials. Linda plays Daly, out to seek revenge on dastardly businessman Luker (Leon Askin).As you might imagine, this gets pretty incoherent, and after a while some viewers may just give up trying to make any sense of things and just go with the flow. The archive footage is plenty sleazy, and will very much satisfy the exploitation loving crowd. There is a lot of full frontal female nudity, and a fair bit of violence. Not only do people get shot, but they fall victim to snakes and leeches as well. The poor quality of the picture is certainly appropriate for this kind of material.Linda and Leon are fun, as are a number of the foreign performers in the original movies. Among those you may recognize are Anthony Steffen, Ajita Wilson, and Luciano Pigozzi. Hell, there's even a cameo role for none other than Penn Jillette, as a not very competent security guard.The violence, nudity, and frequent action scenes help to ensure that, while this may be dumb, it isn't boring.Five out of 10.

Woodyanders A group of women are incarcerated at a brutal prison farm located on a remote island where they are forced to work as slave labor for a South American mining operation. Assisted by a band of jewel thieves, the much mistreated ladies decide to fight back against their cruel captors. This decidedly grim and unpleasant entry in the ever-popular chicks-in-chains exploitation sub-genre certainly covers all the essential seedy bases: Plentiful gratuitous female nudity, a group shower sequence (of course), ferocious catfights, scummy rapist guards, and the unavoidable climactic exciting revolt and subsequent break out. The harsh downbeat tone, an unremittingly sordid atmosphere, the complete dearth of campy humor, and a marked emphasis on sadism all give this perfectly putrid pip an extra foul and unnerving edge. This flick further benefits from a solid cast of familiar European exploitation cinema faces, with especially sturdy contributions from Anthony Steffen as the gallant leader of the jewel thieves, Cristina Lay and Ajita Wilson as a couple of tough and determined inmates, Luciano Rossi as a vicious slimeball, and Luciano Pigozzi as the supremely evil and callous warden. Moreover, it's always a hoot to see Linda Blair act tough while brandishing an Uzi and spitting out a few vile expletives. Leon Askin positively oozes as slimy crime kingpin Luker. Penn Jillette pops up in a fleeting bit role as an ill-fated security guard. The grubby cinematography provides an appropriately washed-out look. The droning redundant synthesizer score by Mark Ryder and Phil Davies likewise possesses a certain cheesy charm. Good scroungy fun.

dbborroughs Patchwork women in prison film was made from combining two Euro shockers with some new unrelated footage. The new footage has Linda Blair (who shoots security guard Penn Jillette in an blink and you'll miss it role) going to confront the man who runs a mine in the jungles of South America where women are abused and forced to dig for gems. Blair says she was one of the girls in the camp and once we get the confrontation the film flashes back to a group of women going to the island and being abused.This is an okay film with some stand out moments. Its very much of its type with all sorts of abuse heaped upon women who eventually revolt and then make a made dash into the jungle, however there are a few moments where the film creates some genuine tension and creepiness that lift it a bit above the typical voyeuristic level that these films normally operate on. Of course its not high enough to make this something you'd want to watch with your mom (unless she liked these sort of films) but if you're in a mood for this sort of thing you could do worse.

Artemis-9 If you are into women-in-prison films, "Escape from Hell" in any good copy near the 89 minute Italian/Spanish original, would entitle you to watch the most erotic, and violent, nude lesbian fight - for possession of the third girl in a cell, between black Ajita Wilson and queen-bee Cintia Lodetti; and a gun duel between the same black fugitive and a Nazi female warden (Christina Lay?) to a mutual gory death. Both fights are at close quarters, and filmed in crude detail, which explains so many "director's cuts" of this film, for different markets.