9. Women In Prison
Women in Prison films (WIPs) are a tremendous good fun sub genre of cult cinema. The formula is quite simple. Woman ends up in Prison. Sadistic fellow inmate/warden abuses and humiliates her to varying degrees. Woman fights back. The WIP has the structure of a porno film and almost always showcases various sexual and perverse goings on in the prison, such as lesbian sex between the women - this is virtually universal in WIPs. Other horrors the women are subjected to include: cat fights, being stripped and searched, torture and humiliation, beatings, punishment and hard labour. The prison governor is usually corrupt and the prison officers, or screws I should say, are not much better. Some of the well known WIPs include Caged Heat, The Big Doll House and Bare Behind Bars. I prefer the Italian WIPs because they are stronger and kinkier. My personal favourite is a Black Emanuelle film in all but name. Violence in a Women's Prison stars Laura Gemser as an undercover reporter in a prison. She learns the wicked ways of the wardens and the battles for power among the women. In one particularly exciting sequence, one of the women flings a huge bucket of human excrement all over another prisoner. They engage in a fight, rolling around in faeces and other women happily join in this ordeal of ordure. Jess Franco made a particularly sleazy entry to the genre with Sadomania. Cult movie legend Ajita Wilson stars as the sex crazed boss of the prison in which all the women are bare chested all of the time and wear tiny denim cut off shorts which would embarrass Daisy Duke. This prison outfit is rounded off by cowboy boots and it is quite amusing to watch the women perform hard labour in such attire. When I say hard labour, they just seem to mindlessly shovel at some stone but Franco himself turns up to play a colossal pervert (what else would he be?). Good sleazetastic fun.