John Nail (ascheland) There are plenty of directors who could make a crime comedy/women in prison movie as bad as "10 Violent Women," but only Ted V. Mikels could make it a chore to watch.The titular women (initially eight, not 10) are working as gold miners (seriously) at the movie's opening, but when the one man on the crew detonates some dynamite and almost kills one of the women, they decide, naturally, to turn to crime—"with class"—for easy money. So they rob a jewelry store, though for all their talk of wanting easy money their plan is unnecessarily complex, involving decoys, disguises and one working on the inside (I think; the storytelling is only slightly less murky than the lighting). Usually when robberies have such elaborate set-ups the goal is to make off with the loot without the victim realizing she or he has been ripped off until the thieves are long gone. But apparently that's too stealthy for our violent women, so they end up holding the store owner up at gunpoint anyway, taking his "assistant" (who may—or may not—be one of the violent women) hostage. They ditch their wigs and stolen limo in an alley then, after stopping in a park for a lame water gun fight, our women head for Vegas to fence the stolen goods. Sheila (Sally Alice Gamble) is the one who seems to have some connections, in that she knows a guy who sorta knows another guy, so she arranges to sell the stolen jewels to Leo (Mr. Mikels himself, making a much better impression as an actor than director). When Leo tries to pay the women in bags of cocaine, they attack him and leave with the jewels and cocaine—but not before Sheila finishes him off by stomping her high heeled shoe into his chest.Besides being the movie's high point, the death by high heels scene is the demarcation line when "10 Violent Women" goes from "so bad it might actually be kind of fun" to "Oh, God, when will this thing be over?" Sheila is the older one of the group (one online reviewer accurately described her as looking like Mrs. Roper on "Three's Company") but she's not the smartest. After getting blitzed on tequila, she approaches two men in a bar and asks if they'd be interested in buying the coke, even though it's so obvious they're cops they might as well be in uniform. In short order: Sheila is killed when resisting arrest, three more girls escape and the remaining four end up in prison, where they join forces with two inmates (so I guess it does add up to 10 violent women after all). The prison sequence should be where we find the movie's moneyshots. But in "10 Violent Women," it's when it becomes a tedious bore, skimping on all the WIP staples: nudity, sex and violence. Only Georgia Morgan as the obligatory sadistic lesbian warden makes much of an impression. A mature woman with a blond pompadour, dragon lady nails and a cigarette-cured rasp, Morgan delivers the movie's best performance and would have been a perfect addition to John Waters' stable of actors. Unfortunately for her, "10 Violent Women" is Morgan's only movie.Predictably the girls escape, their plan so easily executed you kind of wonder why no one tried breaking out sooner. The movie ends as stupidly as it began, with a twist that's only slightly less ludicrous than a group of women dressed as "Charlie's Angels" rejects working as gold miners in the 1970s.It wouldn't have taken much to make "10 Violent Women" watchable: replacing a few members of the cast, if not for acting ability then for physical attributes (most of the women are fairly average looking); better lighting (or even just lighting); and more—a lot more—sex, nudity and violence. Some character development and imaginative storytelling would be a nice touch, too. Instead, "10 Violent Women" is a slog, its primary redeeming feature being retroactively making Mikels' earlier work ("Girl in Gold Boots," "The Doll Squad") seem artfully crafted by comparison.

utgard14 There's something liberating about watching a movie with many scenes so dark you can't tell what's happening. You get to make up your own movie. And brother let me tell you no matter how terrible your idea is, it's miles better than this trash. It's not all dark though. There are dimly lit scenes where you can tell what's going on. Savor these moments. Memorize each person's clothing as that will be the only way you can tell them apart when the darkness returns. The most well-lit scenes take place outside. Perhaps the sun should receive a lighting credit. As with every Ted Mikels movie, there's a little bit of cheesecake. But unless you're really hard up its nothing to get hot & bothered over. Avoid this crapper.

Michael_Elliott Ten Violent Women (1982) 1/2 (out of 4)Director Ted V. Mikels takes at least two different genres and throws them together but the end result is yet another deadly dull disaster. A group of women working in a dangerous mine grow tired of that so they decide to rob a jewelry store, which leads to an issue when a valuable jewel they stole is wanted by its crazed owner. Eventually the women get involved with a drug deal that soon leads them to prison where they're abused by the wicked female warden. TEN VIOLENT WOMEN is an utter disaster no matter how you look at it. I've said this countless times before but I really enjoy Mikels and his style and energy but sadly this very rarely transfers to the screen. If you've seen interviews with Mikels or even the documentary done on him then you know he's an interesting person and someone you'd love to hang out with. The problem is that the majority of his movies are deadly dull and that's certainly the case here. This thing mixes up several genres but sadly the result is just bad. The worse part is that this exploitation film contains very little exploitation and instead the director takes a fun genre (women in prison) and turns it into a kid's flick. I say this because of the lack of nudity and there's even a shower sequence here where the women wrestle but in their bra and panties. What the heck is that all about? There are simply way too many other women in prison films out there that offer much more than what we get here. The first portion of the film deals with the various robberies but these too are just boring and drag on forever. Obviously there's way too much filler going on here and with a running time of 96-minutes it feels longer than Roots. The performances are as bad as you'd expect but so is everything else here.

boblipton Having watched several of Mr. Mikels' films over the years for no clear reason, the only thing I can say about most of them is that they are not as cluelessly inept as Edward D. Woods Jr. This, unfortunately omits the goggle factor as you stop and rewind to make sure that, yes, indeed, Mr. Woods did indeed do that. Mr. Mikels never astonishes in that way, which means there's usually absolutely no reason to watch them, except to wonder how he continued to raise money for the next one.Nonetheless, you may feel the need to look at one of Mr. Mikels movies for yourself. That's all well and good with me; I'm not often here to tell you what to watch, but more about what you'll see if you watch attentively. On that basis, I'd like to make your experiment a little less painful, and this one actually has some decent underlit cinematography by Yuval Shousterman. Perhaps this was a means of coping with a budget so small that they couldn't afford any lights, but then, a good lighting man can make a virtue of necessity.