Chained Heat

This is one of the best of the women-in-prison (WIP) films.

It features Linda Blair, Sybil Danning, and Tamara Dobson. And, when I say features, I mean features. Also featured are Sharon Hughes, Penthouse Playmate Monique Gabriel and Stella Stevens, as the Captain.

John Vernon is the warden, and his office looks like something you might find at the Playboy mansion, with shag carpeting, a Jacuzzi, an exotic fish tank, a fully stocked bar and mood lighting. Henry Silva, the guy I most like see get it, no matter what movie he is in, is the big boss.

Like all WIP flicks, you have lots of nudity, drug use, prostitution, violence, murder, rape, knife fights, shankings, more rape, racism, corruption, tranny abuse, and more rape.

It all ends when the blacks and whites quit fighting each other, and join together to defeat Danning and her henchwomen.

Classic sexploitation and blaxploitation.

`Chained Heat' is a wonderfully vulgar piece of trash that has everything anyone would want in a Women-In-Prison movie: lots of boobs, frontal nudity, lesbian action, drugs, prostitution, rapes, shootings, stabbings, strangulations, and much, much more.

Linda Blair is the naive `heroine' who finds herself in a rather unique penal institution. Apparently, the authorities of the unnamed state in which this story takes place decided they required a lockup reserved almost exclusively for women with `D' cups. (Linda in the movie showed she didn't quite fit this criterion, but apparently some exceptions were made.) Naturally, the prison officials are corrupt to their core (you should see the warden's `playroom') and not above having the women inmates show `good behavior' (if you know what I mean, and I think you do.) There is some animosity between the various factions among the prisoners, but, as one might expect, the girl gangs find a commonality of purpose in the final blow-up toward the end of the movie.

`Chained Heat' is a flick that will stick in your mind long after you've forgotten a lot of other movies.

Fans of the women-in-prison film genre, your "Citizen Kane" is here. "Chained Heat" contains every stereotyped character, every impossible (or at the very least improbable) plot point, and every bit of risible dialogue you have ever seen and heard in every other women-in-prison movie, pumps them up tenfold, and unleashed them in a never-ending barrage on your senses. And yet for all that, it's a movie that's virtually impossible to dislike. It seems to make up for all it's shortcomings by never, ever being boring, unlike many other examples of the genre. And let's face it, it has a cast for B-movie fans to die for.

"Carol Henderson" (Linda Blair) is a young woman who has just been sentenced to 18 months in a very harsh prison on the charge of vehicular manslaughter. When she gets there she is totally unprepared for what awaits her as "Warden Bacman" (John Vernon) is not only corrupt--but due to one of his subordinates named "Captain Taylor" (Stella Stevens)--he is incapable of exercising even the slightest control over some of the more reprehensible situations that develop within the prison. As a result the women are often beaten, sexually abused and sometimes even murdered. And because she is new Carol soon finds herself in the center of it all. Now rather than reveal any more about the story and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this was an average "Women-in-Prison" (WIP) movie which certainly had the potential to be much better. Although the cast was pretty good the story itself seemed to jump too quickly from one scenario to another without the necessary development to back them up. Additionally, some of the scenes were simply too unrealistic which caused the film to lose its credibility. On the other hand, this film certainly had its share of eye-candy with Sharon Hughes (as "Val") and Monique Gabrielle ("Debbie") being my personal favorites. Again though, had some of the scenes been more plausible, in addition to having a more thorough setup between them, it could have been a much better movie. As it is, I have to give it a rating of only average.

I thought this was the greatest "Women in Prison" movie until "Reform School Girls" came along: It presented a gritty, "realistic" (although no real fatsos in this one) look at what our prisons must really be like. Although there was more cold blooded murder in this one, the high camp of "Reform School girls" took much of the edge from this one.

Sybil Danning and Tamara Dobson do great jobs as the leaders of their respective gangs and try to act this one up, but the rest of the cast does not seem to be taking their jobs all that seriously. This film may have one of the best prison riots ever filmed though.

If you cant get "Reform School Girls", but you can get this one, definitely give it a look!