A misunderstood satire

Showgirls (1995)

Well the story is about a girl called Nomi (Elizabeth Berkley) coming to Vegas with nothing more than the clothes she's wearing and a passion to become a show dancer. She meets Molly (Gina Ravera) who helps her out with a place to stay until she can get her dancing career going. Soon enough she's competing for a spot in a show with the biggest star of the business Cristal (Gina Gershon). Then of course money and greed step in and things go wrong. Simple and even stupid story, but yet so familiar from quite a many Hollywood fame and fortune movies, this is just told with a bit more exploitation. This movie rocked the Razzie's in it's days with 13 nominations and 7 wins, but what made it even better was that Paul Verhoeven himself actually showed up to receive the awards for worst movie and worst director. And that's something special right there. It also failed miserably on the box office, even though it later became the highest grossing NC-17 movie of all time. But this movie was a huge success on home video, reeling in more than 100 million dollars, that's pretty clear indication that people rather watch "porn" at home and not at the theaters, even if it's a satire wrapped in softcore sex like this one.

But that's not all this movie is, it's actually a lot more. Even though there's no goofball comedy or witty jokes, this movie is a comedy. It's a satire about the roles of women in many Hollywood movies, the fact that it's done in an exploitative manner is probably why many people seem to miss that point. After all most Hollywood movies are male made male fantasies, they are just politically correctly covered in less exploitative themes. So when this movie hides nothing and couldn't care less about being politically correct it's misunderstood, either intentionally or unintentionally. Those who intentionally misunderstand it see that this could just as well be any other movie out there where a woman is trying to earn a living, just replace the usual romance and comedy with sex and drama and that scares them. Those who unintentionally misunderstand it just can't see the big picture behind the tits and asses. The big picture of course is that satirically every woman in this movie who thrives for success is nothing more than a sexual object for men and advance through their career by deceiving other women. Sure many people see that as a flaw in the character development, but it's the ending which really ties the satire together. I won't give out any details even though you can't really spoil a movie like this. When the movie ends with it's themes of empowerment of women it's just pure comedy brilliance. It's of course tragic as it makes you realize how similar many other woman characters in other Hollywood movies are, but still you have to admit it's also funny as hell.

The acting is from bad to worse most of the time, though funnily enough the black actors and actresses gave out by far the best performances. I'm willing to bet my money on that being deliberate as many from this cast can do and has done a whole lot better. And that's just another indication of this being a satire. My only complaint is the running time, at a bit over two hours this is on the edge of becoming boring at times, but luckily there's plenty of eye candy to balance out those few moments when the comedy stalls. This movie is pure camp brilliance and a great satire, though obviously hugely misunderstood.

90%

Some serious party poopers

The House on the Edge of the Park (1980)

Right after Cannibal Holocaust (1980) Ruggero Deodato made this nasty little film. Even though the shock values might not be what they were in Cannibal Holocaust, this movie is still very disturbing. There's two kinds of sexploitation, there's the rather childish male fantasies and then there's the sick kind. This being a Ruggero Deodato movie this is of course the latter. It's a story about Alex (David Hoss) a homicidal rapist and his friend Ricky (Giovanni Radice), who invite themselves into a party hosted by a snobbish couple. Alex and Ricky take the group hostage, beating the men and raping the women. So the story isn't exactly great and similarities to The Last House on the Left (1972) are quite apparent. This is a bad movie, no other way of seeing it, but at parts it's so bad it turns into an unintentional comedy. Especially the twist at the end was just hilarious in it's stupidity and it pretty much ridiculed the whole movie before it. I don't know if that was a planned sick joke or just stupidity, but for me that worked very well. So basically it's an hour of torture, rape and torment and the ending makes fun of it all.
51%

Here's the trailer which is hilariously misspelled.

Satan's baby doll is surprisingly dull

Satan's Baby Doll (1982)

Nearing the end on my Shameless marathon and I must say the last five movies have been a bit of a let down (The Bronx movies and those two from Sirpa Lane). Unfortunately this one continues on the same track as the Lane movies. The idea is that after Maria's (Marina Hedman) death her spirit posesses her daughter Miria (Jacqueline Dupre) who then goes about to avenge her mother's death. The plot is thin to say the least but it's merely an excuse for showing some skin. And about the skin, maybe it's because I watched three of these in a row, but the sex scenes were just dull. For a movie like this that's most certainly not a good thing. At parts the movie tries to build some tension and suspense, but most of the time it just ends in stupidity. The score was annoying as hell and it's played so often that I was ready to turn off the volume completely. Wouldn't have mattered that much as pretty much everything anyone says in this movie is just time filling text book nonsense. I must give it some credit for trying to create a creepy atmosphere and for the efforts of building tension, but still it's a bad movie.

20%

The Finnish star of sexploitation

I just watched two movies from Sirpa Lane, Finland's gift to the world of sexploitation and 70's B-movies, so here's my brief thoughts on them. I must say I'm not really a fan of sexploitation movies, so pardon me if I don't understand the “brilliance” of these two.

The Beast in Space (1980)

Well the camp values surely are strong with this one. Hilarious costumes, funny cheap special effects, some weird light sabre ripoffs, a half man half horse with a big dildo between the legs and a computer robot monster of some sort with some humanoid robot minions, just to name a few. Add to that all the naked ladies of course, so the entertainment values are high. But really even with all that it was rather boring most of the time, that says a lot about the story of the movie and the horrible pacing of it all. The story is some nonsense about people on a space ship looking for some rare material called Antallum, but everyone seems to be focusing on drinking in the bar and having sex. Eventually they then visit a planet which is ruled by some computer monster thing which controls people's minds turning the whole place into one big orgy. I watched the Shameless release of this movie which said it's the most complete “softcore” version with some shots inserted from the hardcore version which contains additional porn footage added to it. It was rather apparent where the actual movie switched to the porn inserts as you can clearly see it's different people having sex than before. And the weirdest part were the “stunt tits” used in some scenes which didn't look anything like the tits of Sirpa Lane which of course are already presented very thoroughly. I mean for example a scene where she is laying on the ground on a green background while a man rubs her tits cuts to some other tits being rubbed with a blue background while the actress is clearly standing and then cut back to the ground and rubbing the actual tits. What the hell is the point of that? Now I did laugh quite a lot watching this and wasn't bored at all but still I'd rate this among the average of it's kind.

48%

Can't find a trailer for this one.

Love Goddess of the Cannibals (1978)

Talk about a misleading name, apart from two scenes which were borderline cannibalism, this movie has absolutely nothing to do with cannibals. This is nothing but the usual Joe D'Amato sexploitation romp. Well there is a slight try for a statement as the movie is kind of anti nuclear energy, but the focus is of course on the naked ladies and softcore sex. The idea is that there's a nuclear plant being built on some exotic island and the natives have a leader (Melissa Chimenti) who seemingly likes to have sex with the scientists before her minions kill them. Amongst all this is Sara (Sirpa Lane), whose purpose being on the island in the first place is rather vague, except for having sex with everyone. So yes, it's not a great plot and neither is the movie. Apart from a few unintentionally funny scenes, the only thing I liked about the movie was the score by Stelvio Cipriani, though that as well was rather repetitive. Sexploitation fans might get something out of this, but can't really recommend it to anyone else, It's not even bad enough to be funny. I have to give some credit to the music and Sirpa Lane who's always pleasing to the eyes.

23%

Apparently I can't link the trailer here as it has an age limit on it, so search for it on YouTube if you want to see it.

The fury of the damned camera

Baba Yaga - Kiss Me Kill Me (1973)

Weird would be an understatement for this movie. I most likely had a constant “what the fuck?” expression on my face while watching this one. These “fumetti” (Italian term for comics for adults) adaptations were very popular in the late 60's and early 70's and this movie is among the better ones of it's kind. The movie starts out with probably the weirdest scene I have ever seen, I still can't understand what it was about, but there's some half naked people playing Native-Americans and some cowboys driving in cars killing each other and some Jesus impersonator burning American flag until the police come to stop it all. I guess it was some kind of reality theater or something, all I know is I couldn't understand it at all. Anyway that's soon forgotten after the titles and the actual story is about Valentina (Isabelle De Funes), a photographer who gets her camera spellbound by a witch called Baba Yaga (Carroll Baker). The people who get photographed by the camera seem to end up hurt or dead. Then there's Arno (George Eastman) a director friend of Valentina and a living doll called Annette, played by the great Ely Galleani. And then things get very weird, can't say much about it in fear of spoiling it, but then again I didn't really understand most of it anyway so I guess it doesn't matter one way or the other. Anyway I really liked the haunting mood of the movie and the seemingly nonsense script actually made it even more intense. The movie looked great and there's some very nice shots as you'd expect from Italian genre films, but the use of music surprisingly wasn't that impressive. I mean it wasn't bad, but definitely not great either. This Shameless release of the film was a bit confusing as it's a restored director's cut of the movie and it's made mainly from an English print and the cut parts are added from a lesser quality Italian print with an Italian soundtrack. So from time to time the picture quality goes down and people just start to talk Italian and then switch back to English. It's actually not as distracting as it sounds, even though it was extremely notable, after all it's better to see the director's original vision than some cut done by a studio. Fumetti friends will get more out of this movie than I did, I was surely intrigued and mostly entertained throughout it, but in the end it left me with a ton of questions and not much else to go with.

69%

Why don't we have sex before I kill you?

She Killed in Ecstasy (1971)

This is one of the better movies from the infamous exploitation guru Jess Franco, that however doesn't make this a great movie. Dr. Johnson's experiments with aborted fetuses is brought to a stop by a group of surprisingly jealous colleagues who deem it inhumane and revoke his license. Not only that but they decide to trash his laboratory as well for some weird reason. Unable to do what he loves the most makes dr. Johnson lose his mind and commit suicide. Dr. Johnson's wife swears revenge on the people who destroyed her husband, so she decides to seduce and kill all of them. Well needless to say the plot is quite crap and the acting is mostly weak, but that's not exactly the point of this movie. It's of course the sex and violence which both there are plenty enough, though getting there takes surprisingly long. The violence is quite mild compared to others of it's kind and the effects are rather bad. The sex on the other hand is well in hand, mostly thanks to Soledad Miranda who is always a pleasure for the eyes. She also is the one who puts the most effort into the acting and does a surprisingly good performance turning from an innocent wife into a crazed seductive killer. The cinematography and the set design are quite brilliant so the movie looks gorgeous. The music is also great, even though it does start to repeat itself a bit too much in the end. So in the end there's quite a bit I liked in this movie, but on the other hand there was an equal amount which I didn't.

50%

Being a sex slave might not be that bad after all

The Frightened Woman (1969)

I must say I was quite surprised with this one. I was expecting some crap like Venus in Furs (1969) but this turned out be quite good. It's a story about a woman who ends up being kidnapped by a rich man who keeps her as his slave. So the basic story is what you'd expect from a sexploitation flick, but there's quite a bit more to it than just that. Actually, apart from a few scenes, this movie is not exactly sexploitation at all and it's surely not as graphic as others of it's kind. In fact I was wondering why the hell did this movie ever get an X rating, guess the times were different back then. Anyway, I loved the twists in the story with the change in the balance of power between the two and the big twist in the end which left me very surprised and yet somehow very happy. The movie looks stunning, the cinematography and set desing is very stylish with it's psychedelic late 60's touch. It's also very symbolic and at parts even surrealistic, so there's a lot more going than just the sexploitation "plot". The music was certainly not the best from it's kind, but still quite good, so that department was well in hand as well. The cast was quite ok as well, though I had to watch the english dubbed version so that of course brought down the performances quite a bit. It's not a perfect movie by any means, it drags on a bit too much at parts and maybe the script could have been a bit better at the start, but still I quite liked it.
76%

Fight the power sisters!

Flavia The Heretic (1974)

I have to say I'm a bit puzzled. I hadn't seen this before but of course heard a great deal about it as it's kind of notorious among the fans of the exploitation genre. It's described as a brutal, sleazy and straight forward nunsploitation, but to be honest I was wondering did I really see the same movie as everyone else. This movie reminded me more of The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) than Behind Convent Walls (1978) or any other nunsploitation flick like that. I mean sure the main character is a nun and sure there are quite a few sexual themes in it and yes it even has some nasty scenes and a bit of violence, but it's basically a historical piece about a woman who fights back the oppressors. And with that it even manages to raise quite a few thought provoking points, another thing that's very uncommon for nunsploitation. So yes I liked the story quite a bit, but the movie surely isn't without flaws. The style is quite uneven, at parts it's very straight forward exploitation like and at parts it's very stylish somewhat even surrealistic. The pacing is fast, so you won't get bored at any point. The cast is quite good, Florinda Bolkan being the most notable of course, but Maria Casares as sister Agatha was quite great also. The low budget shows at parts quite badly, but it really didn't matter that much. If you can call this nunsploitation then this is by far the best of it's kind, but as a historical drama it's not bad either. By the way the Shameless DVD was annoyingly letterboxed into a 4:3 frame which means when you watch it on a widescreen telly you'll have only a small image in center of your screen with tons of black all around it. Weird thing as thus far all of the Shameless releases have been very good quality.
68%

A bad porn movie without porn

Venus in Furs (1969)

Well I have to say this is not my kind of thing. I mean naked women are always fun to watch, but usually there's either a good (or so bad that it's good) story around it or then it's porn. Well this was neither, the story is pretty much straight out of a porn movie, but there's no porn. So a movie that deals with sexual passions and perversions done in the ways of soft core sexploitation isn't really interesting. It's just not deep enough look to the subject that it could hold your interest for the duration of the movie. Got bored, despite the beautiful women.
20%

The sister in blood red

The Killer Nun (1979)

This is a weird crossover between a giallo and nunsploitation, but it kind of fails to be either. There's not enough sex for a nunsploitation and there's very little thriller to be a good giallo either. Though I guess giallo fans will get more out of it than sexploitation fans as it at least tries to bring some stylish murder sequences into the mix. The plot is quite ridiculous with this morphine addict nun who is going crazy while killing patients in her hospital. There's all the cliches of both genres and the movie brings very little new to the mix. The cast is ok, Anita Ekberg being the most notable of the lot. I wonder why this ended up into the video nasties list as there's very little sex and the violence isn't too bad either. All in all I got quite bored watching it.
31%

Keep your clothes on or you might end up dead

Strip Nude for Your Killer (1975)

This is from the sleazier side of giallo's, but it's actually not a bad thing. Giallo fans tend to bash this for being too sleazy for a giallo, but still it has all the right elements of a good giallo, it's just spiced differently. And that spicing is what makes this quite special. Like the name suggests there's tons of nudity and sex in between the knife swinging and sometimes during it as well. The story is quite idiotic as it's in most of the giallo's, but as usual it doesn't matter at all as you don't really even care about it. The cast is quite ok, Edwige Fenech and Femi Benussi surely didn't make matters worse. What I loved about this was the sheer insanity of it all, I mean on one side it's a proper beautifully shot giallo, on the other side it's a sleazy sexploitation fest and if that wouldn't have been enough it also manages to be a trashy fun ride that's at points so over the top it's hilarious. So basically you get three exploitation genres in one weird package. First it scares you to death in a stylish way, then it excites you with plenty of beautiful ladies and then it cracks you up with hilarious morally incorrect comedy. So what's not to like? Well it's not perfect of course, at parts it tends to get a bit tedious, but luckily there's plenty of comebacks as well. For fun sleazy exploitation fans this is a must see, but for giallo fans it might not be the best choice.
75%

Stupid does not equal funny

The Legend of Awesomest Maximus (2010)

I really don't know why I watch these movies. I'm always thinking that I need some light entertainment that will make me smile for an hour and a half. But yet most of the time these end up being quite painful experiences. I'm talking about those crazy comedies that make fun of famous movies and/or TV-series and/or famous people. This one had the National Lampoon name in it so I thought it would be something in the line of those quite good Chevy Chase films. It wasn't. This movie is not funny even though it desperately tries to, it's just stupid. Luckily there were some tits and asses, but not much else worth watching.
18%

Pasolini's view of the world

I actually had only seen 2 films by Pier Paolo Pasolini before, Teorema (1968) and Salo - 120 Days of Sodom (1975). Couldn't remember much from either of them, except that Salo was seriously fucked up and Teorema was some sort of weird drama. So I decided it's time to check some of the others as well and got the 5 movie Pier Paolo Pasolini Collection to see if there's something in there. It's not the definitive collection of his best work, just some notable ones. But it should give some idea wether the rest of the movies are worth checking out.



Mamma Roma (1962)

This is Pasolini's second feature length film. It's a drama about a middle-aged prostitute who has saved up enough money to quit her old job, get a new "proper" job, a new apartment and most of all get her son back. Well things don't of course work out as planned. This is a solid little drama with a good cast and a lot to say about the way the world was heading back then. It has a quite nihilistic feel and even though the people seem to be singing a lot, they might not be exactly feeling fine. So the basics are working quite well for this one, but unfortunately it didn't work as well as it could have done. Actually I got quite bored at times, even though this is not a long movie. That says a lot about the pacing of the movie. Solid effort none the less and surely promised more to come.
67%



The Decameron (1971)

This is the first part of Pasolini's Trilogy of Life, the other two you can see below. This one was just a mix of short stories piled together without much sense to it. Some bits of comedy and some nice criticism towards the church but mostly the movie focuses on stories were it can show some tits and asses. Nothing wrong with that, I love movies which criticize religion or politics, especially funny ones, and I like tits and asses, but the problem was the pacing. The movie manages to get utterly boring before it gets funny again. The few good moments this movie had were so far apart it's really not worth watching for those either.
36%



The Canterbury Tales (1972)

Just like the first part this also is a mix of short stories, but this time there is at least some attempt to bind them together with this man who is writing them down. Well again the criticism is very present and we get quite a lot of tits and asses. This time the comedy is a bit more present and is quite dark at times, surely a plus for that. Also there were a bit more of those good moments so it worked better than the first part. But again the pacing is off and the slow storytelling gets very boring at parts. The ending was quite hilarious with the devil pulling out stunts even goatse would be envious, but getting there was a bit too boring.
47%



Arabian Nights (1974)

The third and final part is the most complete of them all with a proper storyline behind it. It's also the easiest to watch without falling asleep. So the pacing is a bit better and the comedy is fairly ok to keep you entertained. Tits and asses pop up frequently also to keep the interest up. Far from a masterpiece but still was worth the watch. Though I think I won't be watching it again any time soon.
59%



Salo - 120 Days of Sodom (1975)

What I remembered from this movie were that there's some gay sex, people eat shit and nails and that there was some old hag telling dirty stories. Oh and lots of skin. I remembered it to be repulsive and offensive. Well it's all of the above and then some. The biggest surprise I got from watching this one again was the comedy. I really didn't remember it being any funny, but damn this is like the grimmest dark comedy ever made. It's so over the top in fascism, nihilism and shock factor that I just had to laugh at it. Simply hilarious. Under the exploitative surface it's actually a parody about fascism and basically people with power. I mean a scene with the bishop fucking a young girl with the president jumping in to fuck the bishop in the ass while the magistrate is jerking off a boy tells a lot. Sure this parody could have been told in a bit more easily approachable way but still it's quite great for what it is. Surely not for everyone, but once you get the point it gets quite hilarious.
79%


Watching these 5 movies still didn't make me a fan of Pasolini, but maybe the rest of his movies are worth checking out as well...

The horny beast

The Beast (1975)

I have to say I'm quite speechless after seeing this. It's a fantasy horror tale with sex and bestiality. If you're into either of the last of those you will get something out of this one, but the fantasy is left to a guy running in the woods in a gorilla-bear-rodent costume and the horror for me was at the start when you "enjoy" horses having passionate sex with a sweet soundtrack. All the Finns can be proud as Sirpa Lane is the lucky woman who gets to make sweet love to this creature. It's badly acted and the direction seems to be a bit lost. Luckily the ladies were very nice and there are some bits that were so bad it was quite hilarious. But not really enough to keep the interest up for the whole of the movie.
33%

Those women just can't keep out of the prison

Violence in a Women's Prison (1982)

This one is regarded by many as one of the better "women in prison" movies, but I have to disagree. It's almost so bad that it gets funny, but not quite. Funniest thing was the misstyped title on the DVD menu which called this Violence in a Woman's Prison, making it sound a bit deeper look into the subject. It deserves some points for the hilarious red eyed rats and a plus for Laura Gemser.
22%

A sex comedy with not that much comedy

Fantasm (1976)

Heard a lot of good about this Aussie sex comedy, but it turned out to be a big disapointment. The comedy was mostly absolutely rubbish with a couple of almost good scenes with some nice "what the fuck?" moments. The sex scenes were from quite explicit to quite mild and there were plenty of them. The "acting" was bad throughout. The look of the movie was quite ok but definitely nothing special. So it certainly didn't shine through in any department and I got quite bored despite the few nice moments.
33%

Bondage leads to a Stockholm syndrome

Journey to Japan (1973)

A Danish distribution company called Another World Entertainment dug up this very rare film from the realms of forgotten celluloid and brought it to us in a glorious DVD format. Well unfortunately there is a reason this one was forgotten, it sucks (no pun intended). A Swedish girl, played by Christina Lindberg, arrives to Tokyo and accidentaly gets into a wrong car which she believes is her escort. The driver of the car is a poor loser who has no idea what the woman is talking about and why did she get in his car. Well then he of course decides to bring the girl to his shack, tie her up and rape her. Well to keep it short, the girl gets away only to be raped again, gets back to the man and falls in love with him. So yeh, that's basicly the story here. Lots of softcore sex and Christina spends most of her time naked tied up in various ways. There are a few individual scenes that were quite nice and the wacky ultra wide format it was shot in actually works quite nicely on some parts. But damn the movie is just so bad I had a hard time to keep my interest on it. Kind of like a bad porn movie without porn. Some points for the couple of nice scenes and Christina Lindberg who is always nice to watch.
19%

Sexploitation version of Indiana Jones

Gwendoline (1984)

What happens when the director of Emmanuelle (1974) decides to make an action adventure in the spirit of Idiana Jones and the likes? You get Gwendoline, a campy, sexy, badly made, good looking, bondage oriented and even quite violent fun ride. I don't even want to go to the acting, the cast is there for their looks, not for their talent. Most of the effects are quite bad, but funny enough all the gore effects are quite striking. They have their priorities I guess. The story is crap, but serves it's purpose to take the movie to the land of the women. The dialog is straight from a porno movie, "Take off your clothes, it's raining!" or while being captive of a cannibal tribe "You don't want to die a virgin", you get the point. Plenty of tits and asses, spiced with bad jokes and campy story. Not the best of it's kind, but it's still fun for a hangover morning when you want to give your brain a rest.
69%

From Sweden with a vengeance

Thriller: A Cruel Picture (1974)

Before I get to the film itself I have to say a few words about Quentin Tarantino. Some people question his contribution to the art of film saying he just recycles old ideas and mixes them with his trademark "trendy" dialog. This minority is partly right but I don't agree with them. I love his movies and what he has done to the art of film making, not just by his own films but the awareness he raises for old forgotten "classics". You may think what ever you want about the whole "grindhouse" genre, but it has it's place and deserves to be available for those who wish to see them. It's thanks to him we finally in 2004 got a proper DVD release of this movie. Before that a crappy severely cut bootleg copy was the best you could wish for. For a bit of background, Bo Arne Vibenius got frustrated from the box office failure of his first movie, so he decided to make the most commercial movie he could think of just to cash in some big bucks. Sex and violence was his recipe. Some commercial movie he surely did, the movie got banned straight away in Sweden, it's homeland, only to have the same fate in another country after the other. He finally found a distributor for the movie in America, but only after it had been cut more than 20 minutes. The movie kind of vanished after that even though it was quite famous in the genre scene where it was hyped beyond reality just before it's full length DVD release in 2004. So I of course rushed to spend my last euros on the overly priced "limited edition" they put out with a fear of getting some overly hyped mediocre film. Well I wasn't disapointed, it hit me like a sledgehammer and went straight to my all time favourite movies. Would have paid a lot more had I known what I was really getting. But that was back then 6 years ago, now I gave this classic a revisit. So the movie is a quite basic story of abuse and revenge, but done with a take no prisoners attitude. A girl gets sexually abused as a child and looses her ability to speak. Then 15 years later she's kidnapped and shot up daily dosage of heroin to make her a sex slave. And of course she then takes a revenge. The hard core porn inserts are still one of the best I've seen in these types of movies. Sure they are there purely for the exploitation factor, but yet they kind of fit the story. The other infamous insert with the eye is still freaking gross, but that also fits surprisingly well to the grim tale. The slow motion scenes worked like a charm before, but now not that much, seemed to drag it on a bit too much. The ending was still as magnificent as before, hadn't lost a bit of it's poetic justice feel. All in all it still worked, but now I paid a bit too much attention to the small details which were not really working. As it's a movie with only grander scale events, the details are not meant to be seen, so that kind of broke it up with me. Even though the movie is in The List, I'm not going to give it full percentage now, as right now it didn't work as good as in the first viewing. But also I'm not going to remove it from the list either as it has it's well deserved place there as a definite genre classic.
89%

99 years is a long time...

The Big Doll House (1971)

One of the better women's prison movies from the golden era of exploitation movies. Shot in the Philippines like so many of it's kind, due to cheap labour and exotic location. Though the location doesn't matter that much in this one as it's mostly shot indoors. It's not in the same league of exploitation as the more notorious ones from the same era, this one being quite easy-going, but it doesn't matter at all as there's so much going on that you won't get bored. Actually the exploitation is just a side product in this one as it's focus is on the tough women. Though I'm quite sure their initial intention wasn't that, but the strong cast just turned it that way. Any which way the movie is filled with the trademarks of it's kind like torture with various appliances, lots of shower scenes, violence, soft core sex and of course not forgetting mud wrestling. I've seen this movie quite a many times by now and was surprised that it still kept me watching without losing interest. The scene with Pat Woodell in a tan dress shooting with dual MP40's is something that burned into my head from the first moment I saw this movie back in the 80's and still today kicks ass more than any other gun wielding woman since.
86%