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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Ilsa: The Wicked Warden (Jess Franco, 1977) Review

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“Her Prison was Hotter than Hell!” First there was Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS, then there was Ilsa: Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks, and then came Ilsa: Tigress of Siberia – but when is an Ilsa movie not an Ilsa movie? When it's a Greta movie. Jess Franco (99 Women), the prolific master of Euro-sleaze, brought the world this unofficial Ilsa movie between the second and third instalments in the official series under the original German title of Greta: House Without Men. Indeed, in classic grindhouse fashion, this seedy little flick has numerous aliases, such as Ilsa: Absolute Power, Wanda The Wicked Warden, and Greta the Torturer (aka Mad Butcher, aka Sadist). It may have morphed into an apparent Ilsa movie after-the-fact in a canny advertising move, but it does cover similar ideas: a sex-mad wardress, despicable scenes of torture, the inevitable blood-crazed vengeance … just the kind of movie your Granny would love, surely?

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Bad Girls Behind Bars (Blue Underground Boxed Set) DVD Review

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The 'women in prison' sub-genre goes back as far as the 1930s, but it wasn't until Jess Franco's 99 Women (1969) that the template changed. A formula was established that was to be followed for many years – and many films – to come. Innocent girls thrown into a depraved hell hole of a prison, often in a stifling foreign climate, only to be tortured and seduced in equal measure by both guards and fellow prisoners. Sadistic wardens (often times female) would treat their guests of the state like slaves, and many WIP films involve prostitution or trafficking sub-plots. Toss in plenty of bare/sweaty/soapy female flesh, prison riots, escape plans, and cruel injustices resolved with furious vengeance, and you've got the essentials of the genre.

The locations would change (islands, jungles, Los Angeles, East Germany, etc), and the tone would shift (action fest, sexploitation, Naziploitation etc), but common themes remained true across the board. Repetitive, perhaps, certainly sleazy, these films fought with sexual politics head-on. Simultaneously exploiting attractive women while also unleashing them to seek their bloody satisfaction; there are few good men in the WIP arena. These are the sort of movies in which, when the women do wear clothes, they might as well not have bothered as their breasts always find a way to get maximum screen time. Bombastic, low budget, sometimes shocking, occasionally grotesque, it's a wild-eyed world of hot bodies, cold steel, burning passions and animalistic insanity.

Read on to discover the delirious depravities of 99 Women, Women Behind Bars, Bare Behind Bars, Sadomania, and Amazon Jail.

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