Pridemoore

"Reform School Girls" (1986) is a highly entertaining, completely over the top, necessarily derivative contribution to the Women In Prison (WIP) subgenre. Featuring flamboyant performances by butterface favorite Wendy O. Williams (despite the fact that Wendy was 37 when she essayed this teenage role, and looked exactly the same as when she fronted for the Plasmatics), as well as Warhol veteran Pat Ast, the story here nevertheless centers around Linda Carol's Jennifer, who is sent to the "graybar hotel" after abetting her boyfriend in an armed robbery attempt. She immediately runs afoul of Wendy's Charlie Chambliss, the toughest chick in the "school" (the place really seems more like a prison than a school, it must be said), as well as Pat's grotesque head matron, Edna Dawson. The film dishes out all the familiar WIP set pieces, such as shower scenes, catfights, a prison break, several riots, and a very uptight warden, here portrayed by cult actress Sybil Danning, underutilized in this particular role. Entertaining as this whole spoof is, and despite the often very funny lines, I couldn't help thinking that the film that "Reform School Girls" seems to be mainly patterned after, the 1950 Eleanor Parker vehicle "Caged," is infinitely preferable in every department. The monstrous matron played by Hope Emerson in that earlier film makes even Edna's rants of "complete control" seem tame in comparison, and good as Linda Carol is, she's no Eleanor Parker! I suppose it all comes down to whether you're in the mood for an entertaining spoof or a more realistic--and thus more harrowing--WIP experience.

I found this film to be rather boring, though the shower scenes livened things up a bit. A few general comments:

Linda Carol actually did a fair job in the lead role, though her lack of experience was pretty obvious. At least she was the only one who wasn't chewing the scenery. Was she really 16? Seems to me that she was a bit young to be making exploitation films like this. She certainly had the body for it, though.

Wendy O. Williams is just sad in her role. As someone who actually saw the Plasmatics play and who still has three of their vinyl LPs, I can't help but wonder where she went wrong in her career. I believe that she was 37 when this film was made, but she looks like she is in her late-40s. Totally inappropriate casting. Plus, her accent/dialect/speech mannerisms are possibly more irritating than Fran Drescher's. On the other hand, I have to give her an A- for keeping in shape like she did. It's a shame that she ended up taking her own life, but there was always that underlying impression of her that told you she had been seriously damaged during her life.

You may also think that you will get to see some of Sybil Danning's assets, but, sadly, this is not the case. In fact, unless you have a uniform fetish, Danning is about as close to gender-neutral in this movie as you can get. Even Pat Ast exhibits some sexuality in this move...but not Sybil.

Finally, I was prepared for a little more skin than the movie actually showed. Based on other comments, it sounded as if the movie was 40% shower scenes. In reality, though the "girls" are pretty skimpily clad throughout the movie, the actual nude scenes are quite brief. Now, I'm not saying that the movie would have been better or worse with more nudity, but that I expected more based on what others had written. I think you actually get more nudity in "Starship Troopers".

Overall, this was an interesting movie and I was able to watch it all the way through, so I give it ** out of *****. With a few funnier scenes, it might have made it half a star higher.

It's a WIP movie: Women in Prison. In this "Reform School" the girls night time gear consists of g-string panties, lingerie, high heels... basically sexy to a silly degree. This has all the clichés you want, with nudity, violence, girl fights, all that sort of stuff. Wendy O Williams was great as the ultra violent gang leader Charlie. She also did great work on the sound track.

We know this is a WIP cliché film and the purpose is titillation and all that sort of stuff, but it didn't really seem clear to me. A lot of the violence was pretty brutal for the sort of movie it was and many of the scenes are quite realistic, with realistic, emotional performances from some of the key actors, which is quite at odds with that "women in Prison" titillation theme, especially when you have inmates incongruously wearing high heels, thigh high stockings and g-strings to bed!

It seemed almost like a bizarre mash-up of two different films that'd been crudely rammed together: You have Wendy O Williams and her gang of ultra-sexy, violent, tough girls, and the huge lumpy, hilariously sadistic and over the top Pat Ast as "Eddie" doing their very best to make it a sort of Rocky Horror Show ridiculous soft core romp (which would have been marvellous), VS this other theme with the sympathetic characters Jenny, Lisa and Dr Norton where it's a serious look at abuse of power and the horrible toll abuse takes on its victims- almost as it they're going for Cool Hand Luke or Full Metal Jacket sort of stuff...

That made a weird mix that didn't really fit together well at all. It's as if the film makers were trying to be too smart for the material.

Set in a correctional facility for young female offenders, Reform School Girls is technically a Women in Prison movie, but don't expect anything too sleazy ala the films of Jess Franco—as far as the genre goes, this mid 80s effort from seasoned trash director Tom DeSimone is one of the lighter examples, designed to be fun rather than offensive.

While it does deliver most of the standard WIP ingredients—cat-fights, communal shower scenes, bull dykes, fragile first-timers, and physical abuse—it's all done in knowingly camp fashion with tongue firmly in cheek. The big-breasted women saunter round their dorm in sexy lingerie, the nastier inmates and members of staff are grotesque caricatures, the dialogue is deliberately tasteless ('I thought I smelled fish'), and the plot is about as cheesy as it could get.

Let's face it, any film which sees a scantily clad Wendy O. Williams, lead singer of punk/rock group The Plasmatics, stood atop a speeding bus on a collision course with a sadistic, overweight, shotgun toting head matron called Edna (a memorable performance from Pat Ast) was never intended to be taken all that seriously.

Reform School Girls' biggest problem is that the line between camp and serious drama appears to be very thin and it's hard to tell exactly what the creators had in mind when they made this. On one had, you have the over the top performance of Wendy O. Williams and Pat Ast, but there are also several unpleasant and sleazier aspects that aren't treated with the same campy, tongue in cheek quality.

It's still very entertaining at times, but it could use a slight trim here and there even at just 94 minutes. If you're in it for the nudity, you'll be happy.