Schoolgirls in Chains

Although this Grindhouse-era sleazer is the genuine article, and features enough griminess and mysogeny to merit its title, the film's relative tameness and tediousness made for a fatiguing watch. As such, this trash is recommended only to genre completists. The women are mixed, from very hot to rather plain, and they seem to be dispatched in order of their overall sexiness. That said, however, there isn't a lot of violence here, with the majority of the encounters relegated to generic harassment and lame-o psychological domineering. The story involves a pair of backwoods brothers, whose mentally ill, incestuous mother has twisted them into dementia. After years of abuse, the brothers eventually find solace in kidnapping young women and keeping them captive in a makeshift cellar, visiting them periodically for faux-childish "playtime," which involves anything from kiddie-style doctor scenarios, unwholesome "hide-and-seek" stuff, with the brother's shooting one girl as she runs away; and miscellaneous intimidation and humiliation. There is a decent amount of nudity, but no more so than your average grindhouse flick. The dialog and scene structures are repetitive, and the story is basically a joke. In the end, this one looks fugly and sounds fugly, and you'll spend the majority of the time just admiring the 70's skin. Been there, done that, friends, and I've seen it done a whole lot better than "Schoolgirls in Chains." Unless you just have to see every entry from the sleazier end of the Grindhouse front, you can pass on this one. ---|--- Was this review helpful?

A good entertaining movie with interesting characters It's not a masterpiece but it's worth watching. The thing that spoils it for me is the abysmal soundtrack!

Two very disturbed brothers kidnap women, take them to their secluded farmhouse and lock them in the basement. They seemingly do it for their mother (a la PSYCHO), who is only seen from behind, sits on a rocking chair and says, "Ah, it's good to have two fine boys!"

Johnny (John Stoglin) is the mentally adolescent one in overalls who bounces up and down, likes to be pushed around in a wheel barrow and, more importantly, likes to play "games." The sick games include doctor (where women are stripped naked, fondled and get a syringe stuck in their ass) and topless leap-frog (?!) John is also a voyeur who watches a young couple have sex, then kidnaps the girl.

The other brother is Frank (Gary Kent), who is depressed, impotent and sulks around a lot in deep thought. He seems fairly normal except during scenes where he rants about his mother, kills and tries to rape a captive. In one scene he relates an outrageous flashback to how his mom drove his fiancée away by telling her that "We make love! We make love like two lovers!".

The sickly chained up women in the basement have rats crawling on them while they sleep, are beat, sometimes killed and constantly humiliated and subjected to the sick games of brother Johnny. They're referred to as "pets", "toys" and "playmates" by their captors. Yes, this film (the video I picked up was titled LET'S PLAY DEAD) is very trashy, offensive and misogynistic, but cult/sleaze movie fans will love the depravity at work in this entertaining and mostly forgotten gem of the 1970s exploitation circuit.

The term 'grindhouse' gets bandied about a little too much these days (thanks, QT), but Schoolgirls in Chains is the real deal, a sleazy, low-budget shocker aimed specifically at drawing in a crowd keen to see pure exploitation—in this case, beautiful women abducted and abused by a pair of demented brothers, who have been raised by their sick mother to believe that ALL pretty young females are evil (when, in fact, it's only about 90% of them).

Trapped in the grungy basement of a remote house, the captured women are kept as playthings for man-child John (John Stoglin), whose over-enthusiastic approach to his depraved games often results in his 'toys' being broken (and consequently buried in the family's vegetable patch). Meanwhile, big brother Frank (Gary Kent) is on hand to keep the ladies in control, under the ever watchful gaze of domineering, woman-hating Mother (Greta Gayland).

When John's game of hide and seek with his latest toy Sue (Merrie Lynn Ross) ends up with the gal receiving both barrels from Frank's shotgun, Mother agrees to the abduction of Bonnie, an attractive student who John has been spying on. After Bonnie goes missing, however, her lover—a professor at her college—sets out to find what has become of her...

With a dab of psychological drama (ala Psycho), a soupçon of incest (mother loves her lads a little too much), a smidgen of rape (Frank forces himself on pretty prisoner Ginger, played by lovely Suzanne Lund), a touch of torture (I want to play doctor!), and a whole lot of grubby, low-rent photography accompanied by a suitably discordant soundtrack (complete with an effectively unsettling nursery rhyme theme), Schoolgirls in Chains achieves exactly what it sets out to do—entertain its audience through a series of sensational and sordid scenes in which girls in peril are subjected to all manner of horrors.

It's not exactly art, but it sure is fun (but don't tell mama I said so: she doesn't approve of me watching filthy girls). 7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.

"Schoolgirls in Chains" is a "Psycho" inspired low-budget slice of sleaze that chronicles the events of several young girls kidnapped by two maladjusted brothers named Frankie and Johnny who store them in a fruit cellar and routinely subject them to harassment.The films underlying theme of misogyny is primarily filtered through verbal intent rather than visual shocks.The film features Gary Kent as a brooding,incestuous bruiser,John Stoglin as his creepy retard brother and Leah Tate and Suzanne Lund.There is a decent amount of smut and perversity and plenty of nudity,so I wasn't disappointed.Unfortunetely there is not enough violence for my liking and the action is rather slow,but if you like grindhouse exploitation flicks you may give this one a try.7 out of 10.