Roger Corman produced the early features of Martin Scorsese (Boxcar Bertha), Francis Ford Coppola (Dementia 13), Ron Howard (Grand Theft Auto), and James Cameron (Piranha II: The Spawning) and this debut of director Jonathan Demme and cinematographer Tak Fujimoto who would go on to make The Silence of the Lambs among other films. It’s a Women In Prison film involving electro shock-therapy, a doctor who drugs a patient, takes off her clothes, then touches her while taking Polaroids, some ridiculously lame dream sequences, a large amount of naked shower scenes and a catfight on shower floor. While that makes it sound rather exciting, it’s all so sloppily acted and low budget that it’s just a boring mess, though horror icon Barbara Steele is coldly effective as the warden. The directors’ future credits made me curious to see the film but it is a typical b-movie mish-mash of breasts and uninspired hokey action sequences. The film takes a tongue-in-cheek comedic approach to the genre but the comedy is cringe-worthy. Some reviewers seem to think that the script is laced with politics and feminism but in actuality it is a stupid apolitical film and Demme’s dialogue is abysmal. John Cale of the Velvet Underground provides a surprisingly average nondescript soundtrack.
2/5
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