» 7 Stones (2012, USA)
7 Stones is only 46 minutes long. It seems longer. It is a fairly opaque 46 minutes. (more…)
Posted on January 8th, 2014 at 9:50 pm. Updated on January 8th, 2014 at 9:50 pm.
The Nasty Guard
» Left to Die (2012, USA)
Based on a true story, this is, but it bears a remarkable similarity to another based-on-a-true-story film, Hell in Tangier (2006). Except on this occasion, it is an ill, innocent American woman being held in an Ecuadorian prison, rather than an ill, innocent Belgian man being held in a Moroccan prison. There is, it seems, more than one innocent person held in a nasty third-world prison with a story to tell. (more…)
Posted on January 1st, 2014 at 12:49 pm. Updated on September 19th, 2014 at 9:18 pm.
» Fugitive Rage (1996, USA)
You know to lower your expectations when movies are straight-to-video, as this one is. But no matter how low your expectations, this film, also known as ‘Caged Fear‘, will in all probability fall below them. (more…)
Posted on December 15th, 2013 at 9:09 pm. Updated on December 15th, 2013 at 9:09 pm.
» Girl on a Chain Gang (1965, USA)
You might expect that a film called Girl on a Chain Gang would be about, well, a girl on a chain gang. Not this movie. At best, 12 out of the 96 minutes have her sentenced to a chain gang, and for most of those 12 minutes she is on the run. In fact, she never really gets to work on the chain gang, but somehow she’s ‘a Girl on a Chain Gang’. (more…)
Posted on December 8th, 2013 at 7:38 pm. Updated on December 8th, 2013 at 7:38 pm.
» The Concrete Jungle (1982, USA)
Three years after The Concrete Jungle was released, a film called Concrete Hell (aka Turning to Stone) hit the cinemas in Canada. There are plenty of parallels between the two, aside from their shared interest in building materials used in prison construction. Both feature young women charged with cocaine importation who are deserted by their male partners and dropped into brutal prisons which are controlled by big-haired queen bees. The Concrete Jungle definitely came first. Turning to Stone is definitely better. (more…)
Posted on November 27th, 2013 at 9:09 pm. Updated on November 27th, 2013 at 9:09 pm.
» Prison Farm (1938, USA)
There’s no place like prison to learn that your lover is a loser… and then fall in love again. Just ask Jean Forest. (more…)
Posted on November 18th, 2013 at 8:16 pm. Updated on November 18th, 2013 at 8:16 pm.
» Betrayed Women (1955, USA)
“State Prison wasn’t like any other institution in the country. It was outmoded and backdated… a sort of female Devil’s Island. A bleak prison with swamplands on all sides, smouldering with tension that festered under rules of discipline that hadn’t changed in the past hundred years. A hell hole that God and the public had forgotten.” So says Jeff Darrow, or maybe Jeff Darrell (Tom Drake), asked by the new Governor to report on prison conditions and treatment. Notwithstanding this ridiculously overblown introduction, the Bayou Reformatory for Women seems much the same as any other movie prison with spiteful guards and a toughish regime. (more…)
Posted on September 25th, 2013 at 10:16 pm. Updated on September 25th, 2013 at 10:20 pm.
» Chain Gang (1950, USA)
If you were a reporter who had gone undercover to expose brutality on in a chain gang, do you think that you’d be at all keen for your editor to publish stories and photos – that can only have come from you – while you’re still working in the prison? Not hugely keen, one suspects. (more…)
Posted on August 3rd, 2013 at 11:01 pm. Updated on August 3rd, 2013 at 11:23 pm.
» The Rat Tamer (1995, Australia)
Back in 2006 this was released as a movie on DVD. It had been Hugh Jackman’s first major screen role a decade or more earlier, and the marketers were no doubt looking to cash in on his X-Men fame. Yet it’s not a movie at all, but rather the unedited (and conveniently feature-length) first episode of the Correlli TV series, masquerading as something else. (more…)
Posted on July 29th, 2013 at 11:03 pm. Updated on August 3rd, 2013 at 8:47 pm.
» Nightmare in Badham County (1976, USA)
You could be forgiven for thinking that this is just another exploitative Women-in-Prison movie. And it probably is. But it duped me, somehow, into thinking it might be something more. (more…)
Posted on July 7th, 2013 at 8:18 pm. Updated on July 7th, 2013 at 8:18 pm.