Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Leofwine_draca WOMEN'S PRISON MASSACRE is a typically slapdash and exploitational Italian women-in-prison movie from Bruno Mattei. It's posited as an entry in the BLACK EMANUELLE series, and Laura Gemser does appear, but only as one of an ensemble cast. After a slow first third full of the usual cliches and nudity, the plot kicks in for real with the arrival of Gabriele Tinti and his bunch of psycho criminals who soon take over the prison and hold a bunch of women hostage. Unpleasant sleaze is the order of the day here, with plenty of nudity at first before the film descends into some shocking and splattery violence towards the climax. It's derived from other, better films like THE DEER HUNTER and it doesn't have much charm, although Mattei ladles in the mayhem in a bid to keep his viewers entertained.

The_Void Well, I won't say I'm a big fan of Italy's Emanuelle rip-off films, but they often make for decent exploitation entertainment, despite usually being crap. I prefer the title 'Emanuelle Escapes from Hell', but this film is also known as 'Emanuelle in Prison' - and as that title suggests, this is basically a 'women in prison' film, with Emanuelle in it. However, the usually rubbish Bruno Mattei has decided to put a slightly different spin on the genre, and rather than having a no-plot film about lesbian guards and women with no clothes on, we have a plot line involving a bunch of criminals that hole in the prison(?), and proceed to rape and molest the inmates. It's still pretty dire, however - the cinematography is good, but the action is your usual sleazy Emanuelle fare, mixed with some classic exploitation-style sleaze for good measure. As you would expect, the film features a performance from Emanuelle herself, Laura Gemser, but in a reversal of form - she keeps her clothes on! There's still plenty of nudity, however (don't worry!), although it would seem that Mattei was more keen to keep the focus on the criminals that have broken in rather than the women in the cells. Still, every exploitation fan has probably pretty much seen this before, and I wouldn't really recommend it to non-Emanuelle fans.

Michael A. Martinez This is really a tough movie to forget, and surprisingly easy to watch considering how trashy and low-tech it is. Basically, Mattei uses his same grimy super-low-budget look as he did in NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIES and RATS: NIGHTS OF TERROR. However, in this film, much like it's predecessor CAGED WOMEN, this trashy look actually really helps it out, evoking some odd sort of fantastical feel to a usually mundane setting.The movie takes place in a women's penitentiary, but I honestly doubt any women's prison was ever in any way like it is presented. The convicts are almost all at least decent-looking and are a little too keen on fighting each other or having pseudo-lesbian exchanges, every-time showing off a little more than their panties for the camera. The one-up this film has over CAGED WOMEN is the fact that it actually has something resembling a plot as well as some pretty hard-edged violence. Four male prisoners (led by Gabriele Tinti, the only good actor of the group) take over the women's prison and proceed to terrorize the locals. The acting and music are a little less polished (read, pretty darn bad) but they actually really add to the atmosphere of the whole thing.I really enjoyed the quasi-utopic view of the four male prisoners basically having everything they want right at their fingertips (much like how the four survivors in DAWN OF THE DEAD had everything they wanted within an abandoned shopping mall). All four of the men are sick, depraved perverts and are in the most condusive environment possible for their sort of behavior. Just imagine what happens when you put sex-starved male convicts together with sex-starved female convicts? (A pretty good idea for a movie!) It's also funny to see a lot of fairly classy actors basically making fools of themselves. Lorraine De Selle looks extremely uncomfortable, as does Carlo De Mejo in his last major role.My only big complaint is that the good characters get killed off way too quickly and stupidly. The goofy guy who keeps the razor blade in his teeth seems to get the most horrible death imaginable, even though he was the most likable of the four male convicts, go figure. The ending is a little hard to decipher as well. Hats off to Mattei though, as his editing has never really looked better. There's also some surprisingly stylish sequences near the beginning and ending of the film, notably the oddly-lit Theater sequence and the flashback montage, which is aided greatly by Luigi Ceccarelli's simplistic synthesizer music. It's a pretty good film overall, surprisingly, if one takes into account the budget (or lack there-of) involved.

rduchmann This film has been identified in some secondary sources as an alternate title for the one released in US as CAGED WOMEN but they are in fact different, though not *too* different. For the greater part, WIP fans do prefer "the mixture, as before," without innovations, though it helps if there is a plot more coherent than the average Jess Franco production.In this outing, Laura Gemser is not Emanuelle, doing undercover journalism at a prison, but rather a hard con doing time. Lorraine de Selle is still on staff and still has that hooker underwear she modeled in CAGED WOMEN, and best of all, the haystack hair blonde and skinny teenish brunette are both doing 20-life here too. The blonde looks as if she's eaten a little lasagna since the previous picture. Her opening scene finds her wearing nothing but *tight* kini panties, over which her tummy roll hangs enticingly. Wow! (scene is 'way too short.)Here, dangerous male cons are temporarily housed in the women's lockup, but they get loose and a riot ensues -- at least when they're not having sex with horny femme cons who haven't seen a man since the Aldo Moro administration. No shower scene in my video copy, which is always a drawback, though it does feature a weird theatrical presentation by the inmates, for the inmates. (And you thought WEEDS was an original idea!) OK of its type.