gavin6942
Framed for the murder of a record company president in 1952 Hollywood, young, aspiring singer Aggie O'Hanlon (Missy Crider) is sentenced to life in prison and tries to adjust to her life behind bars in a hellish women's prison where she is befriended by other "lifer" inmates who help her out when Aggie finds herself marked for murder by an unknown source who thinks she knows more about the murder than she does.From director John McNaughton, best known for "Henry Portrait of Serial Killer" and "Wild Things", and with one of his regular actors, Tom Towles. This seems far beneath McNaughton, but then, the series seemed far beneath everyone who was involved (Joe Dante, John Milius, Robert Rodriguez).This was part of the "Rebel Highway" series that was supposed to be edgy updates of 1950s B-films. Most ended up being cheesy and campy rather than edgy, and this is no exception. Of course, much of this is the low budget (not much over one million) and McNaughton was lucky he happened to convince Sam Fuller to write the script -- Fuller was a genre writer whose work dated back to the 1930s. And there is a brief shower scene that would not have slid in the 50s... but the language is surprisingly clean for a prison.Ione Skye has a decent sized part, and Anne Heche has a small but important role. For those looking for some star power, their interaction might be the highlight of the film. (Oddly, despite her impressive list of credits, Missy Crider does not seem to be considered a star.)
horrorfilmx
Quasi-remake of the 1950s film of the same name directed by Edward ("Fast Eddy") Cahn. I was impressed to see Samuel Fuller's name in the writing credits but disappointed by the results. There are lots of Fuller-style quirky lines and off-beat twists but they come off more like someone imitating Fuller than Fuller himself. Parts of this movie (especially the truly unbelievable climax) defy belief. Other parts simply make no sense at all. I think the main problem is a director who doesn't actually get the jokes in his own movie, never a good thing. Ione Skye gets top billing but actually has little more than a minor supporting role. She gets to do a bush league version of James Cagney's mad scene from WHITE HEAT but she's no Cagney. The other girls come off a little better. Bahni Turpin is charming and attractive and does a pretty decent job but the movie really belongs to Anne Heche. She plays a stereotypical film noir femme fatale/whack-job (at one point even adopting the alias "Gilda") and carries it off with style and assurance. And yeah, you get to see her boobs in the shower scene. They'e very nice.
Son_of_Mansfield
May contain slight spoilersThe cop tells Melba "You have five seconds to drop your weapon and live", Carol's father stares with wide eyes and repeats "are you a communist?" afer being attacked by a mob of morons, and when the private detective offers to help the innocent girl, he states "I'll strip her naked, tie her up, take her to the woods, then starve her until she confeses." There was nothing wrong with script, but only Anne Heche seemed to realize that this movie should be played for laughs. I might have been able to not take this movie seriously if everyone involved had giving a good example. Instead, this was one of the longest 82 minutes I have sat through in quite some time. Do not believe the back of the case, which boast of great bad girl performances and steamy shower scenes, there are no bad girls and the shower scenes appear to have been filmed by a blind, fourteen year old boy. The girls are very nice to look at, but only Anne Heche distinguishes herself. She is surprisingly attractive with long black hair and she gives a pleasantly off performance.
jmydgeek
This should be a campy, cheesy riot, an homage to exploitation films. Instead, it just is one. It seems they didn't feel like trying hard enough to make good schlock, and counted on the camp element to excuse the lack of quality on the serious level.I thought that this would be like 'Mars Attacks' with shower scenes. There were two of those, and I have to say I enjoyed them. But as Joe Bob Briggs says, the plot gets in the way of the story.
AD
