Kategoria: Exploitation

#1890 Split Image (1982)

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A cult exploitation movie at its heart, Split Image depicts a youngster lured into brainwashed by a religious cult. But ever more interestingly, it also depicts him getting kidnapped back and deprogrammed by his family.

But all this peeping Tommery is pretty much the only interesting part of the movie, and other drama falling behind. And even that is not too interesting.

There is a small foreshadowing from the cult, but perhaps the movie would have been more interesting if it tried to present itself less as a documentary movie (which it is not), and more just a thriller where the main character has to flee the cult at the risk of their live.

80s-o-meter: 71%

Total: 26%

#1807 Bad Girls Dormitory aka Bad Girls (1986)

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Bad Girls Dormitory starts off as any sleazy women prison exploitation movie out there: someone innocent gets jailed, they go to prison with a sadistic warden, corrupt staff and strict picking order between the prisoners. Catfights and topless shower scenes aplenty.

Compared to the other similar sleaze out there, Bad Girls Dormitory landed somewhere in the lower rank, with shoddy production values and with the whole movie looking like it was shot in a backstage of an empty restaurant.

What I did not see coming thought was that in the third act Bad Girls Dormitory turns from below average prison exploitation to actually quite good and entertaining action movie. If the movie had relied only on this aspect, the movie could have been something of a gold nugget instead of the kind of turkey it is.

80s-o-meter: 81%

Total: 45%

#1720 Lust for Freedom (1987)

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I could not be less interested in women prison exploitation movies that saw their hay day in late 70s and early 80s, but Lust for Freedom being a Troma release and kind of late to the show, I was hoping there to be something different of interest here.

Well, there is — kind of. Right off the bat the movie starts off with a better background story of a woman underground police officer quitting her job after traumatic events and wandering into to a small town with its law enforcers running a human trafficking ring. What follows is basically every cliché of the exploitation movies out there, only. turned to 11; there’s more blood, more action, more cat fights, more nudity and more of other x-rated filth the fans of the genre are looking forward to.

Personally I still find the whole genre irrelevant to my movie taste, but I do have to give credit to Lust for Freedom for really going overboard with everything, and at least making it somewhat interesting to plow through.

80s-o-meter: 87%

Total: 61%

#1528 Angel III: The Final Chapter (1988)

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Angel III: The Final Chapter takes again a step to wrong direction and feels in most ways far less insignificant than the previous two installations, missing the roughness around the edges seen in the first part, and the value adding ideas seen in Avenging Angel.

In fact, with the lead actor once again downgraded to another actress, Angel III: The Final Chapter feels almost a separate movie in the series. While the lead Mitzi Kapture alone isn’t to be blamed for the shortcomings of The Final Chapter, it really did not help that she is previously known to me only from Silk Stalkings, a ridiculously cheap and plastic 90s TV-series that plagued the Finnish late night TV for years.

Despite its title, the series did not end up with The Final Chapter, with one more unworthy sequel released in 1994.

80s-o-meter: 91%

Total: 42%

#1527 Avenging Angel (1985)

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A sequel to the Angel, Avenging Angel picks up the story a few later after the events of its predecessor, with the heroine now off the streets and working as a lawyer. I found the setup interesting and the whole Angel character now much stronger: instead of being just a gun happy lolita on a revenge spree, she is well spoken, confident and intelligent. This coupled with her background and her street knowhow makes for an interesting character that at best writes itself.

Playing Molly (’Angel’) Stewart this time around is the gorgeous Betsy Russell who fits the role perfectly, and would be my pick of all the Angel actors. The tone of the movie is lighter than with its predecessor, and it introduces some actual comedic elements and segments I wasn’t completely sure were the series needed, but I didn’t mind them much either.

As a completely average (in a good way) 80s action comedy, Avenging Angel is by far the strongest and most entertaining movie of the series.

80s-o-meter: 90%

Total: 72%

#1526 Angel (1984)

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Angel, an exploitative, sleazy movie of a teen grade-A student gone prostitute ends up something of bore.

The first part of the (mostly unrelated) four Angel movies that were released in 1984 (this one), 1985 (Avenging Angel), 1988 (Angel III: The Final Chapter), plus one more attempt to milk the weak franchise, released in 1994.

Angel is mostly passable, but nothing really substantial enough to stick with the viewer for longer. The only really interesting part of the movie is its eccentric supporting cast, as well as the depiction of the 80s street life. The exploitation angle is strong in the marketing, but the end result is a bit tame.

80s-o-meter: 68%

Total: 58%

#1517 Reform School Girls (1986)

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A 1986 take on the women prison exploitation movies popular in the 70s, Reform School Girls aims to poke fun of the genre by playing with clichés and turning all the knobs all the way to 11. But it does so only partially.

All the prisoners are of course (adult) models tippy-toeing around the reform school dorm just waiting for an excuse to go to have a shower with the other girls, and Edna, the head of the ward pictured in that awesome poster is set to make everybody’s life miserable.

Women prisoner exploitations were already quite far fetched, super heavy on clichés and caricatures for characters, so the humor here falls very short. As in, not funny at all. But in its poor genre Reform School Girls is actually well above average, even if not successful as a satire.

80s-o-meter: 89%

Total: 61%

#1468 The Concrete Jungle (1982)

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I definitely was not looking forward to seeing The Concrete Jungle after suffering through various similar prison exploitation movies.

Luckily The Concrete Jungle manages to surpass most of similar women’s prison exploitation movies by staying low in exploitation and putting more emphasis on the script. Make no mistake about it still, the movie prison world is very much there; the prisoners are well groomed, look like models, sleep in their pyjamas in a dorm and get into cat fights.

But, there is an actual plot and the movie manages to generate empathy towards the main character thrown in the slammer for protecting her drug trafficking boyfriend. Tracey E. Bregman performs well in her role as Liz and overall the movie looks much more fresh than its release year would suggest, and the 70s style movie poster does not represent the look and feel of the movie at all.

80s-o-meter: 85%

Total: 62%

#1466 Stark Raving Mad aka Murder Run aka Rockaday Ritchie aka Execution (1981)

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Another late 80s drawn to look cool to hide the fact that the movie itself is almost one decade old and made with a small budget, Stark Raving Mad is one of the movies I always thought to be a cult classic, but isn’t. The probable reason for this is the classic Simpsons episode from the season 3 (1991) that had a similar word play, Stark Raving Dad – but the two aren’t connected in any way.

Stark Raving Mad is an exploitation movie done in the vein of Bonnie and Clyde of a 19-year old greaser who starts dating a 14-year old and they end up starting a crime/murder spree. The official blurb of the movie states the following: while awaiting execution, a convicted serial killer relates the story of the circumstances that led to his present situation – but this kind of prologue was missing on my DVD copy. There is however a final sentencing closure present.

There isn’t much info nor reviews available for the film online, so it can be considered an actual movie lost in time. Plot and production wise it’s a pretty inept movie, but not a complete stinker. Knowing the downward spiral will end unfortunately for the duo, watching the proverbial noose tighten around them still makes for an interesting if not thrilling experience.

80s-o-meter: 55%

Total: 52%

#1443 Combat Shock aka American Nightmare (1984)

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It was only after viewing Combat Shock that I learned it’s a cult classic, a major one, actually. Although there were a few nice original touches here and there, it mostly seemed your typical film student indie project heavy on blood and artsy writing, and low on budget and overall quality.

Shot entirely on Staten Island (without permits, of course), the movie makes a good impression of both Vietnam – as we typically see it low budget cinema – and the derelict, urban ghetto. Another thing that sets Combat Shock apart is the baby, deformed due to the chemicals the lead character got exposed in the war, who cries in a weird alien voice and resembles something moulded out of C4 putty. The baby not only sticks with you after the movie, but it also sets the overall nightmarish mood.

It’s too bad the other aspects of the movie seem trivial, and don’t seem to serve much else than to pass some time until the movie gets to its blood soaked shocker ending.

80s-o-meter: 70%

Total: 45%

#1364 Chained Heat (1983)

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Apparently one of the definite women in prison movies of the 80s due to featuring Linda Blair, Chained Heat wasn’t the movie that’d finally convert me to a fan of the genre.

What I liked about it was just how over the top (and all over the place in general) the movie is. This is the weirdest prison I’ve ever seen with seemingly no boundaries: every prisoner is free to roam wherever they want and are often invited to the warden’s private luxury room of sexy-time with jacuzzi and cameras.

Other than that, it’s pretty standard ride. The women are much too sexy and well groomed to be prisoners, all the guards are sadists and the movie culminates with your typical vengeful prison riot.

80s-o-meter: 85%

Total: 25%