Sleaze Fiend Magazine - Issue #3 Preview

It has taken a little while, but Sleaze Fiend Magazine is back for a hell-blazing return in this 76 page extravaganza of scintillating filth! This issue is dedicated to the down 'n' dirty biker movies of the 1970s in 'Death on Wheels: A Bikesploitation Retrospective', detailing more than twenty different entries in the genre including "The Glory Stompers", "The Savage Seven", "Naked Angels", and "Sleazy Rider".

Our other main feature in this sizzling outing is 'Hot Flesh & Cold Steel: Decades of Depravity - The Women In Prison Genre', which examines some key entries in the sub-genre including: "Bare Behind Bars" (the movie that clothing forgot), "Sadomania" (Jess Franco's muckiest directorial effort), and "Caged Women" (learn more about squeaky bums and a novel way of staying hydrated) among other sinful sights.

We've also got Streeborama slingin' some much needed revolutionary fervour about as he details "Easy Rider" and "Sweet Sweetback's Badasssss Song", wrapping it all together as he rails against 'the New Millennium of Mediocrity'. Furthermore, there's another entry in 'The Manson Files' and a few more tidbits besides (such as a review of "The Humans" comic book series). Elsewhere in the issue we have a few career retrospectives: two for a pair of icons of horror cinema who sadly passed away since our last issue - Wes Craven and George A. Romero - and another for the late Rene Bond, star of various adult films from back in the heyday of mucky movies.

Independently produced - by fans, for fans - and featuring some tasty artwork, this glossy cover mag with a hard spine is sure to rev your hog's engine and send your wildest daydreams hurtling back to a simpler, sleazier time when exploitation cinema ruled the dusty back roads of America!

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Barbed Wire Dolls (Jess Franco, 1975) DVD Review

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“I'm the Warden of this prison, you're lucky to have been put in my care.” Teaming up with the 'European Roger Corman' Erwin C. Dietrich, on what would be the first of fifteen pairings, Jess Franco was up to his typically mucky-minded antics with the inventively titled Barbed Wire Dolls. Classed by the Catholic Church as a “most dangerous film maker”, Franco's fast and loose style pre-dated the infamous and short-lived Dogme '95 movement – a venture that the mammary-mad auteur dismissed as “a very good publicity thing for a moment”. The use of natural light, a hand-held and self-operated camera, and other things may have been cheap, but it also added a twisted sense of reality to his films, and Barbed Wire Dolls is certainly one of Franco's more warped efforts...

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Caged Women (Leandro Lucchetti, 1991) DVD Review

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“Well here we are Miss, the asshole of the world, and only God knows what the hell you're doing here.” When you think of exploitation cinema your mind primarily jumps to the 1970s and 80s, but rarely does it venture into the 1990s. The 'women in prison' genre had been around for decades, but saw it's heyday in the wake of Jess Franco's 99 Women (1969), so Leandro Lucchetti's 1991 film Caged Women is quite a late entry. The nineties were a lean time for horror and exploitation filmmaking, and it was also about this time that the Italian film industry, that had been so full of life, began to crumble.

“You take care of your ass and I'm gonna take care of mine.” Opening with a woman running through the jungle in rags – replete with slow motion topless sequences – only to be hunted down, things get off to a grim start. Meanwhile, Janet Cooper (Pilar Orive, braless and wearing the hell out of some Daisy Dukes) arrives in a remote South American coastal town completely unaware of the dangers that lie ahead. Checking herself into the nearest hotel, a skeezy joint with a rough and tumble bar, Janet wastes no time in washing up for some adventure...

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Chained Heat (Paul Nicolas, 1983) DVD Review

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“Where hot desire melts cold prison steel!” The 'women in prison' genre enjoyed it's heyday during the 1970s and 1980s, shifting from Nazi camps, sweaty foreign locales, and South East Asian revolutions, to down-town Los Angeles, criminal conspiracies, and the abused inmates rioting against an inherently abusive system. Regardless of the framing – be it the concrete jungle or the actual jungle – copious nudity, savage gal-on-gal fights, torture, domination, humiliation, drugs, guns, and lead-fuelled vengeance (or any combination thereof) was the order of the day. Naturally, with such an influx of 'WIP' films, the quality varied immensely, but some of the greatest entries included Jack Hill's iconic double-whammy of The Big Doll House (1971) and The Big Bird Cage (1972), as well as Paul Nicolas' (real-name Lutz Schaarwachter) 1983 festival of flesh & action Chained Heat.

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Roger Corman's Cult Classics Triple Feature: The Women In Cages Collection DVD Review...

The Big Doll House (Jack Hill, 1971):
Jack Hill had a great run of exploitation flicks - balancing sex, violence, style, and wit with aplomb - as he would go on to give us not only Coffy, but Foxy Brown as well. A couple of years prior however, he established his working relationship with Pam Grier (this was her first major role) and Sid Haig in The Big Doll House - where the likes of Judy Brown and Roberta Collins' crims are serving hard sentences in a hellish female prison in the raging heat of the Philipines.

Straining against a sadistic Wardress, if the chained chicks want to survive they'll have to hatch an escape plan, employing the services of two hot-under-the-collar fruit sellers. While women in prison movies had been around for decades at this point, Hill's flick certainly proved very influential over those that followed (even if 99 Women (Jesus Franco, 1969) arrived just beforehand). It became a huge financial success and helped considerably to firmly establish the template for the innumerable WIP films to come. The film plays to its exploitation roots with mud-caked girl fights, gratuitous shower scenes, and so on, but the female prisoners are sympathetic, strong-willed, sassy and defiant - they may go through hell, but when given the chance they'll dish out unrestrained vengeance upon their captors.

* * *

Women In Cages (Gerry De Leon, 1971):
The Big Doll House had been a hit, so Corman sent a crew straight back out into the jungle heat to shoot another one - and the rush-job approach certainly shows. The plot is half-lifted from The Big Doll House, as well as Grier, Collins, and Brown all returning for acting duties.

Hill's signature balance of exploitation and smarts is generally absent, with De Leon lacking his predecessor's style and skill ... and what's more, the sound effects are an absolute mess. Even at a trim 81 minutes it's a bit sluggish, and while it's certainly not a snoozer, it's easily the least of this particular collection. That said, there are many entries in the WIP genre that are considerably worse than this film which, issues aside, isn't too bad. Compared to the two Jack Hill movies that are also on this set, Women In Cages does have exhibit the darkest tone of the three, with added focus on theatrical torture scenes. On it's own it'd only be for hardcore exploitation flick fans, but in the context of this boxset it works well.

* * * 

The Big Bird Cage (Jack Hill, 1972):
Returning to re-work the success of The Big Doll House, Jack Hill's style and sense of humour are back in spades. If anything he's turned the dial up to eleven: for instance, every male guard is gay, all the chicks are gagging for it, and Sid Haig's revolutionary has to flirt outrageously to get a job on the inside.

It's an impressively put together flick bringing Grier and Haig back together again as revolutionaries looking to boost their numbers and morale by busting out the fetching femmes of a nearby prison work camp - where an oppressive sugar cane mill dominates the terrain. The idea of revolutionaries reflected the real-world politics of the region at the time and became a common theme for some of these movies - for example, it was referenced in The Big Doll House, and again in Black Mama, White Mama (Eddie Romero, 1973).

Building on his established and successful formula, Hill also picks up the scripting duties and provides plenty of laughs to balance out the scantily clad lovelies. Teda Bracci's uniquely ebullient performance produces ear-to-ear grins, while Grier plants the seeds of her bad ass chick schtick that she would build upon in the following years for Coffy and Foxy Brown. Anitra Ford, meanwhile, plays it cool, calculating, and smoulderingly sexy as the girl with all the right secrets from torrid trysts with government figures. It's easily the best of the set, and worth the price of admission alone.

* * * 

Presented by Shout Factory, this two disc, three-movie set - bringing together the first three 'Women in Prison' movies produced by Roger Corman's New World Pictures - is a must buy for fans of 1970s exploitation and grindhouse cinema. All of the films have been cleaned up nicely, and presented anamorphically in their original aspect ratios, and while the audio is at times a touch troubled (particularly in Women In Cages), these movies - birthed in the heat on Manila - have been given the attention and respect that some cinemagoers would never afford them in a million years.

Rounding out the package are two commentaries with Jack Hill, a series of stills galleries, trailers, and most impressive of all a specially made documentary titled From Manila With Love which goes behind the scenes of The Big Doll House and The Big Bird Cage with numerous key players (Jack Hill, Sid Haig, Anitra Ford, Teda Bracci, Roger Corman, and more). Running just shy of 50 minutes it leaves you wanting more, but nor does it abandon you with a sense of lacking. It's a nicely put together documentary and is the perfect way to complete this package. Two thumbs up for Shout Factory!