La gabbia infernale

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.

There is a lot of nudity in this film. There is a mud bath and a girl on girl fight in the asylum showers. As far as the horror goes, the lobotomized victims do act like zombies. The leather and studs killer, named "Silk" leaves something to be desired. After a slow start the film picks up the pace only to have a drawn out ending where far too many characters need to be killed off. Some familiar B-movie stars on this not very common tape. I did not care for the ugly 80's make-up that the main character always wears, even too bed. Still, there is no real reason to pick at the plot details in this kind of film. At least it does not try to be too socially conscious.

I remember first seeing this exploitation gem on HBO in the mid 80's, while spending the night at a friends house during 8th grade. It reminded me of a cheaper, dirtier Reform School Girls.

Mary Woronov as the deliciously evil, Dr. Fletcher has some great moments. I especially love when she blows the state inspectors a kiss goodbye while they are leaving the hospital... (after nearly discovering her clandestine, underground chamber of horrors, known simply and ominously as Hell Hole.

Lots of the actors look like rejects from a lame porno movie, and deliver their lines accordingly. One will find themselves alternately rolling their eyes and laughing their butts off while watching this.

The movie also has one of those great, cheesy synthesizer soundtracks to add to the fun. If you enjoy watching a movie just to see how bad it is, filled with senseless violence, drugs and lesbian sex, then watch Hellhole.

This somewhat entertaining garbage stars Judy Landers as Susan, a young girl who witnesses her mother's vicious strangling. Following this, she comes down with amnesia(of course)and is sent to a mental sanitarium for women(of course) headed by the mad Dr. Fletcher(played with loads of much-needed camp by cult icon Mary Woronov),who likes to perform unorthodox drug -induced lobotomies on some of the more out-of-control inmates. There is plenty of stuff in this flick to please any die-hard camp or exploitation fan: pointless lesbian scenes, gratuitous shower scenes & nudity, camp dialogue , horrid performances(with the notable exception of Woronov), & a cast that also includes Marjoe Gortner, Dyanne Thorne(of "Ilsa" fame), Ray Sharkey, & Terry Moore. All in all, a classic midnight movie.

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.