Nightmare in Badham County

UCLA coeds Cathy Phillips (Deborah Raffin) and Diane Emery (Lynne Moody) are driving around the country before the start of school. They get a flat tire. A black man is willing to help them but that gets the ire of Sheriff Danen (Chuck Connors). The Sheriff arrests the girls for trespassing and rapes Diane in jail. When Diane tries to raise the issue, the Judge adds prostitution to the charges and sends the girls to the prison farm in Badham County. The Judge turns out to be the Sheriff's cousin. The prison is a corrupt racist excuse to provide slave labor for the well-connected. It's run by Dancer (Robert Reed) and his sadistic prisoners-turned-guards.

I can't believe that this was a TV movie. Obviously, the nudity would be cut but it's still a brutal viewing experience. This is a mix of 70's sexploitation and social justice. Parts of this are very hard to watch. It is grindhouse in its nature. The acting ranges from solid professional to amateurish. Sometimes, the sexploitation detracts from the seriousness of the work.

Seriously good women-in-chains exploitation flick that was an ABC Movie of the Week. Deb Raffin and Lynne Moody star as coeds on summer break who pick the wrong backwoods town to have car trouble in. The town is run by a demented sheriff (Chuck Connors, much more effective as a baddie here than he was in "Tourist Trap"). When the girls spurn his advances, he jails them and rapes Moody, and then arranges to have them shipped off to the local prison farm. There, they are abused by the sadistic guards (among them Tina Louise) and brutal warden (Robert Reed). They soon discover not everyone gets out of the place alive, either. Della Reese plays one of their fellow inmates. The film is harrowing and believable, even if all the guards are shapely if not beautiful women. Guards in this type of film tend to come in all shapes and sizes, the better to intimidate and beat up on the inmates. The film is all the more frightening because this stuff happens in real life, or used to. Some decent nudity and whipping and cruelty, obviously added to the video release and for the overseas market.

Reminiscent of the Roger Corman cycle of "babes-behind-bars" flicks from the late '60s and early '70s, this is an enjoyable little exploitation item. Maybe some think it has pretensions to mask as "social commentary," but don't believe it, and just enjoy it for what it is--a made-for-TV version of those great Corman Filipino "prison-chicks" flicks. Apparently the video version is a lot more explicit than the TV version, but I haven't seen that one yet, so I can't say. Deborah Raffin and Lynne Moody are the two poor souls who get shanghaied into a Southern hellhole, and while Raffin is her usual bland, whitebread self, Moody steals the show from her. She's a much better actress than Raffin, is (IMHO) prettier and far sexier, and has a fresh, approachable, open appeal that Raffin lacks. Robert Reed does a nice turn as the corrupt prison superintendent, and it's fun to watch Tina Louise playing the sadistic prison matron--and Lana Wood is a blast as a lesbian (ahh, where would women-in-prison movies be without them?) prison guard.

All in all, it's a fun watch if you don't take it too seriously--or seriously at all. Check it out.

One of those movies they used to show late at night or on Saturday afternoons on tv in the 80's. Scarred my little mind, with scenes of violence, rape, and racism. Like your worst nightmare come true. I refused to get out of the car in Georgia when driving to Florida every year after seeing this one.

Usually I try and avoid watching TV-movies because I keep thinking they hold back on shocking content and grisly images, but lately I've encountered several titles that actually proved my way of thinking is entirely incorrect and even quite shallow. "Nightmare in Badham County" is one of them examples, because the themes featuring in this movie are definitely not what you would call "soft". Perhaps the depicted violence isn't as graphical and the sleaze isn't as explicit, but the suggestive material and insinuations here are far more shocking than the gratuitous footage in most other contemporary flicks. This undeservedly and sadly obscure made-for-TV 70's thriller successfully combines elements and ambiances from two of the most commonly used and popular horror sub genres of the mid 70's, namely the so-called "Women in Prison" films and "Hicksploitation" movies. The former is pretty self-explaining and handles about defenseless girls being locked away in corrupt and filthy jails where they are confronted with perverted guards and aggressive prisoner gangs. The latter is probably my personal favorite sub genre of horror and like no other one it truly reflects the essence of 70's horror film-making. "Hicksploitation" routinely revolves on civilized people getting stuck, for whatever reason, in isolated backwoods villages inhabited by primitive and exaggeratedly hostile people with horrible dental hygiene. Combinations of the two genres aren't manifold, but "Nightmare in Badham County" illustrates that it's perfectly possible and even almost logical to amalgamate the characteristics of both.

But this is also more than just a shocking exploitation hybrid. "Nightmare in Badham County" is a genuinely moving drama with identifiable lead characters, a disturbing portrait about the abuse of authority and generally speaking also a professionally directed and astoundingly shot but modest film. Whilst on a road trip through the South, interracial college girlfriends Cathy and Diane are forced to make a stop in a small community in Badham County due to car trouble. The liberated and free-spirited girls they are, they quickly offend and publicly humiliate the chauvinistic pig Sheriff Danen. So badly even that he finds a cheap excuse to place them under arrest and then, at night, sneak into Diane's cell to rape her. A trial follows, but seeing that in this Southern part of the nation everyone is related to everyone, the girls are sentenced to 30 days in Badham County's women prison – called "The Farm" – and that's where the nightmare truly begins. The girls become separated because of their skin color and are prohibited to contact the outside world. They are subjected to hard labor and the harsh and often perverted commands of the guards, while the slightest sign of disobedience results in an increase of their punishment. Several courageous attempts to escape or reach out to the outside world fail because everybody in Badham County appears to be corrupt and/or petrified of the local "legal" system. "Nightmare in Badham County" is, without exaggerating, at least a dozen times more involving and approximately 99% of the other 'Women-in-Prison" movies out there, principally because the two leading ladies are so innocent and defenseless whereas the townsfolk and prison guards are so infuriatingly nefarious! This is one of the rare movies where you literally want to dive into the screen and reach out to help the protagonists because everything that happens to them is so damn unfair and saddening. When you accomplish this level of entanglements among your viewers, I think you can safely say you did a great job as a director. Speaking of which, I actually expected no less from John Llewellyn Moxey as he already demonstrated his craftsmanship numerous of times, for example with "Horror Hotel", "The Night Stalker" and "Where have all the People gone?". Moxey marvelously creates a moodily grim and unsettling rural atmosphere, through fitting music and extended shots of lonely country tableaux, but he also owes a lot to his terrific ensemble cast. Deborah Raffin and Lynne Moody are exceptional as the ladies in distress, but the people portraying the local yokels are near perfect as well – particularly the almost naturally sleazy looking Chuck Connors as the Sheriff. The ending will make you feel left behind as helpless and frustrated as Cathy and Diane themselves, but realism and hard truth are also two main trumps of this overall fantastic cult movie accomplishment. In case you're a truly devoted fan of good shock-cinema and you need a break from all the trashy but dumb 'Women-in-Prison' movies, I wholeheartedly recommend tracking this baby down!