12. Scrubbers (1983)
Directed by Mai Zetterling and billed as 'Borstal for Girls!', Scrubbers is the female answer to the controversial male life in a borstal film - Scum. Annetta and Carol escape from an open borstal. Annetta wants to see her baby daughter who is being raised in a convent, and Carol wants to be recaptured and placed in a tougher borstal where her girlfriend Doreen is currently doing time. Carol's plan works but Doreen has found herself a new girlfriend and they go out of their way to make Carol's life unpleasant. Meanwhile, Annetta is arrested at the convent and blames Carol for dobbing her in. She is hellbent on revenge. Searching for protection, Carol begins a relationship with Eddie who professes her love for her. Annetta's constant hostility keeps her confined in solitary but when Eddie is released, Carol has no more protection and a vengeful Annetta is on her case.. I guess you could call this a Women in Prison (WIP) film - all of the regular motifs are present - rampant lesbianism among the women, sadistic guards, humiliation and degradation. I must confess to a love of this film. I hold it in very high regard due to the acting of the women (Including Eastenders' Pat Butcher as a prison guard!) and I just in general love prison dramas. My favourite ever TV programme is Prisoner Cell Block H. Scrubbers is a bit more graphic than PCBH, but both dramas attempt to show the nitty gritty and realism of women sentenced to prison. Scrubbers is the second WIP to utilise human ordure as a weapon - in the film Carol cops a bucket full of faeces in the face. It is a gross scene. Bruno Mattei had a similar faeces as a weapon scene in his Violence in a Women's Prison. Once upon a time this film was frequently played by Channel 4 but it is rarely seen nowadays. Not a critically well regarded film - unlike its brother Scum, Scrubbers is nevertheless distressing and confrontational. The scenes between Carol and Annetta in the borstal have an air of menace and the part where Annetta gets forcibly sedated and hallucinates her baby is there with her is very dark. A horrid suicide is included in the film. There are no truly terrific memorable lines and scenes as in Scum, but Scrubbers is eminently watchable and packs an emotional punch.