Manicomio diabólico

Hellhole (1985)

** (out of 4)

Susan (Judy Landers) witnesses her mom murdered due to her having some papers, which could lead her boss to prison. The young woman takes off running and the killer believes he has finished her off but she survives and in order to cover up the crime she is sent to a mental hospital. Once inside the hospital Susan realizes that the evil Dr. Fletcher (Mary Woronov) is doing bizarre experiments on the women.

Pierre De Moro made three films in his short career and this here was his final credit. Producer Samuel Z. Arkoff wanted to make a WIP movie and the end result is something that isn't nearly as raw as the Jess Franco films of the 1970s like BARBED WIRE DOLLS and ILSA: THE WICKED WARDEN but at the same time it's a tad bit sleazier than the majority of the American films from the genre.

As you'd expect, when one makes a WIP movies there's a checklist that the screenwriter goes down. This includes an innocent hot woman. There's also the nudity. There are the drugs. There are the lesbian scenes as well as the lovely shower scenes. There's also the butch-type warden/leader doing the bad experiments. There's also the sweet guy who tries to save the innocent woman. All of that stuff is included here and for the most part it's mildly entertaining as long as you're not expecting an Orson Welles type of film.

The performances are pretty much what you'd expect from a film like this, although I found Landers to be a bit too bland in the lead. Woronov is certainly the best thing about the picture but there's plenty of nice eye-candy as well. The biggest problem with HELLHOLE is the fact that it runs way too long at 95-minutes. The film certainly could have used some editing and the "plot" tries to do way too many things.

Objectively speaking, this B flick is a mess, with a sometimes incoherent screenplay by Aaron Butler. Judy Landers stars as Susan, a young woman who's forced to witness her mother being killed by gleeful thug "Silk" (a scenery chewing Ray Sharkey). While fleeing him, she has a bad fall, gets amnesia, and ends up confined to a mental institution for young women. And it just so happens that the mad doctor in charge, Fletcher (Mary Woronov), is up to no good, performing insidious lobotomy type experiments.

"Hellhole" is not without the charms common to such exercises in pure sleaze. This exploitation-melodrama-horror film comes complete with all of the girl ogling / female nudity that a trash lover could want. There's even a pointless mud bath sequence that one must assume was in there because the producers demanded it. There is some decent atmosphere, but there is practically no gore to speak of. Some viewers will have to prepare themselves for the fact that some story elements are introduced and then pretty much dropped: the "papers" that the bad guys controlling Silk want so badly come off as a MacGuffin.

Making it all worth watching is a B movie cast to die for. Woronov gives easily the best performance in this thing, camping it up in her turn as the female villain. Sharkey is blatantly comical and offbeat as the psycho goon. She may be very sexy, but the less said about Landers' acting, the better. Also turning up are Marjoe Gortner, Richard Cox, Edy Williams, Robert Z'Dar (in his first film), Cliff Emmich, Lynn Borden, Dyanne Thorne, and Carole White. Cox is the nominal hero, a nice guy orderly who sympathizes with Susans' plight. Z'dar is amusing as a sadistic guard. Thornes' cameo as an inmate who thinks she's an actress is a highlight.

Executive produced by A.I.P. legend Samuel Z. Arkoff, and co-produced by his son Lou.

Six out of 10.

In Hellhole's pre-credits sequence, the mother of busty blonde Susan (Judy Landers) is insistent that her daughter takes a shower; mother clearly knows what kind of trashy film this is and exactly what the viewer wants, but Susan doesn't seem to understand, her ablutions proceeding without any sign of nudity.

Somehow, Susan remains fully clothed throughout the entirety of this film, even after she is carted off to Ashland Sanitarium for Women, where almost every other patient is good-looking and frequently naked. Susan is taken to the institution suffering from amnesia after a serious fall following the murder of her mother by vicious thug Silk (Ray Sharkey, who looks like he has just sauntered out of the Blue Oyster Bar). Silk is looking for hidden papers that can incriminate his boss Dr. Monroe (Martin Beck), and believing that Susan knows their whereabouts, he takes a job as an orderly at the sanitarium.

But Silk isn't the only danger at Ashland: troublesome patients are sent to the Hellhole, where wicked lesbian Dr. Fletcher (Mary Woronov) uses them for her lobotomy experiments. Will nice-guy orderly Ron Stevens (Richard Cox) be able to prevent Susan from being Silk's next victim or becoming a drooling zombie at the hands of Fletcher?

Judy Landers fans hoping for the actress to show some skin might be disappointed by her reluctance to strip, but anyone into cult/trash films will still find much to enjoy about this sleazy little B-movie, the film including most of the ingredients to be found in similar women-in-prison films: we get catfights, communal showers, drug-taking lesbians, crazed lobotomy patients, and even a gratuitous mud bath scene, lucky Silk slipping into the muddy tub with two naked hotties ("Double the pleasure, double the fun, a mud bath with two broads is better than one"), proving that you shouldn't judge a man by his leather-boy outfit.

The film also introduces us to the inimitable Robert Z'Dar as a vicious guard, stars Marjoe Gortner as Fletcher's partner in crime, and features exploitation favourite Dyanne Thorne (Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS) as a patient who looks like Cruella DeVille. All that's missing is a decent plot, quality acting and a competent director, but since when were they necessary for a good time?

HELLHOLE begins with the murder of a woman by a madman named Silk (Ray Sharkey), who is dressed in Rob Halford's pajamas and sports an electrocuted Elvis hairdo. The victim's daughter, Susan, witnesses the crime, and survives an attack herself, while Silk slips away like a studded, leather-clad shadow.

The ordeal puts Susan in the Ashland Sanitarium for Women, where she meets the odious Dr. Fletcher (Cult goddess, Mary Woronov!). Susan soon sees Fletcher's sadistically eeevil side! By some astonishing coincidence, Silk works at the hospital too! Luckily, a wondrous shower scene breaks out, culminating in a miraculous Greco-Roman style, kickboxing catfight!

Uh oh!

There's trouble in the cafeteria! Here comes Fletcher and her goon squad, including the halfhearted Dr. Dane (Schlock god, Marjoe Gortner!) and iron-jawed Brad (Cult, Schlock idol, Robert Z'Dar!)! Soon enough, a patient is whisked away, and we are shown Dr. Fletcher's maniacal view of modern medicine! Meanwhile, pointless nudity erupts, and Brad leers a lot. How will Susan ever survive this loony limbo of the lost?

THIS MOVIE CONTAINS: #1- Mad science! #2- Mind-twisting torture! #3- Drug-induced mutations of madness! #4- Heavenly mud therapy! #5- Unnecessary, uncalled-for, unholy nakedness every few seconds! #6- Nurses in big, paper hats! #7- An actual rubber room! #8- The most epic finale since REFORM SCHOOL GIRLS!

Exploitation film fanatics need look no further! You have reached the promised land! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!...

With a seasoned cast of b-movie veterans like Judy Landers, Mary Woronov, Marjoe Gotner, and Ray Sharkey, Hellhole proves to be more than your average exploitation flick. This cast is clearly having a ball playing such a ridiculous scenes and inhabiting these wacky characters that it helps some of the film's flaws go down a bit easier.

Hellhole is best enjoyed if you turn off your brain and just go along with the flow. Why is there a mud bath in a mental hospital? Why is every woman in this movie a lesbian? Do women really shower like that? Why does the lead character disappear for large chunks of the run time? So many questions and very few answers, but if you just go along for the ride, you'll still have a good time.