Violência na Prisão Feminina

The reporter Emanuelle (Laura Gemser) is on an undercover mission in a prison. If you ever watched any of the women-in-prison movies of the 1980s, you know: prisoners are not treated kindly there. However, "Violenza..." is a little bit superior to most of this genre insofar as it is not only into shower scenes. It's a tough, dark, fast moving flick with an amazing Laura Gemser and her husband Gabriele Tinti as a doctor who helps her to escape. The slowly evolving love interest between the doctor and Emanuelle is well scripted. Not for the fainthearted, however, is a scene where Emanuelle is locked up in a dark cell with a bunch of rats attacking her. Two years later, director Bruno Mattei went on to shoot "Rats - Notte di Terrore" with many more rats - a kind of unhealthy fascination, if you ask me. Laura Gemser and Gabriele Tinti continued with another prison movie "I Violenti" which is a sequel (not as good as the first film) to "Violenza..." although Tinti plays a different character.

Violence in a Women's Prison (1982)

** (out of 4)

Infamous Italian director Bruno Mattai takes a stab at the WIP (Women in Prison) genre as well as makes another entry in the famous Black Emmanuelle series. Emanuelle (Laura Gemser) goes undercover in a prison to see if it's true about the sadistic warden who likes to beat, torture and rape the women prisoners. If you've seen one WIP film then you've pretty much seen this one since the director doesn't try to do anything new or original here. You've got the countless lesbian scenes and constant nudity but this here grows old after a while. There's really not any shock value and the violence is rather low and contained to one scene where rats attack Gemser. Okay film but there are better WIP movies out there.

This WIP movie delivers all the goods in an almost plausible story. Laura Gemser, reprising her role as Emanuelle, is incarcerated in a sleazy women's prison where the warden is corrupt, the guards get excited by torturing prisoners, and the inmates use one another as pleasure toys.

Although intended for mature audiences only, this is a film that delivers the goods in this genre without trying to hold back; even the characters are interesting and developed.

WIP title conceals an entry in the "Black Emanuelle" series. Journalist Em (Laura Gemser, of course) goes undercover at a women's prison to get copy for an exposé. Naturally the place is a hellhole. Gemser bares her skinny body a few times, has sex scene with Gabriele Tinti (what a surprise), dumps a bucket of feces on a guard and spends time in the hole for it, where she is rather unconvincingly chewed on by hungry rats.

Standout inmates here are a haystack hair blonde of about 30, a little overweight but it sure looks good on her, who does a lesbian exhibition to entertain a femme guard, and a tall skinny teenish brunette who is stripped and manhandled by a couple of male guards while Lorraine de Selle, in hooker undies, voyeurs from her boudoir and gets groped by her own b.f. I don't ID either of these inmates but would not mind seeing more of their work. Dubbing is so-so and tech credits about average for an Italian Poverty Row production. This seems to have an authentic US R-rating so is probably a somewhat abridged version of the original. I saw this on big screen in the early 80s and later added a copy to my own video library but it's still just a modest entry in the WIP sweepstakes.

After the sordid delights of 'SS Camp 5 - Womans' Hell' and the bleakly disturbing 'Womans' Camp 119', Bruno Mattei says farewell Nazis and, plumps instead, for a bunch of jailbirds for his next 'women incarcerated' chunk of sleaze.

It is unfortunate I didn't have a copy of 'Blade Violent' to compare this with, this film used the same cast,same sets and virtually same plot. A plus point is that I can review this purely on single merit. On a whole this is a fairly average entry in the Women In Prison genre, featuring three scream queens Gemser, Stoppi and De Selle taking the main roles. Unfortunately these stalwarts of sin cannot save this movie from being a little mundane. The movie tells the tale of our intrepid reporter Emanuelle (Gemser)undercover in a female penitentiary as an inmate. Her task is to report on the corruptive and inhumane practices within the prison/penal system. Eventually we are thrust into the unsavoury W.I.P world where beatings are regularly brandished out by deadpan officers with bad hair, sapphic shennanigans are occurring regularly by the suitably looking 'rough' females and there is of course the obligatory humiliation, mental and physical.

I am unsure whether it is because this is Matteis' first stab at the W.I.P genre (though SS films can't be all that dissimilar surely ?) but I feel the whole movie is rather a tame effort. There a few nasty surprises that borderline on the humourous such as the 'poo punch-up' and a very novel way of bell ringing. The rape sequence, although voyeuristically unsettling to begin with, you gradually find yourself amused as two inmates play pass the parcel with a scantily clad virgin most of this sequence and you wonder in disbelief whether this will end or not.

The direction is well achieved as Mattei uses commendable editing, although the sets are basic, there is still an oppressive decay to the whole affair. Most of Matteis genre films 'Zombie Creeping Flesh','Rats;Night Of Terror','Womens Camp 119' seem to have this vein of industrial atrophy, clinical but chemical and it is this polluted environment that always is the backdrop to some of Matteis' movies making them seem 'nasty'.

Despite sniggering at the dialogue, cringing at the effects and laughing at the dire continuity you always sense a stagnancy that sets the tone from the first frame and lingers throughout until the very last credit. I appreciate Mattei as a director for his grim 'simplicity' and his matter of fact 'I-made-the-films-because-thats-where-the-money-was' attitude. I often think Mattei could've moved onto bigger things but on occasions has been incorrectly underrated.

Buy this to add to the Emanuelle collection, The Mattei collection or WIP Collection that may grace the living room shelf.

VIEWED; UNCUT UNRATED R1 DISC - 99 MINUTES