Ten Violent Women

Having watched several of Mr. Mikels' films over the years for no clear reason, the only thing I can say about most of them is that they are not as cluelessly inept as Edward D. Woods Jr. This, unfortunately omits the goggle factor as you stop and rewind to make sure that, yes, indeed, Mr. Woods did indeed do that. Mr. Mikels never astonishes in that way, which means there's usually absolutely no reason to watch them, except to wonder how he continued to raise money for the next one.

Nonetheless, you may feel the need to look at one of Mr. Mikels movies for yourself. That's all well and good with me; I'm not often here to tell you what to watch, but more about what you'll see if you watch attentively. On that basis, I'd like to make your experiment a little less painful, and this one actually has some decent underlit cinematography by Yuval Shousterman. Perhaps this was a means of coping with a budget so small that they couldn't afford any lights, but then, a good lighting man can make a virtue of necessity.

TEN VIOLENT WOMEN is a film that starts off as an all-female action movie before turning into a women-in-prison flick around the halfway mark. Whichever way you look at it, it's an awful film, which seems to be the norm for cult director Ted V. Mikels whose terrible BLOOD ORGY OF THE SHE-DEVILS I had the misfortune to sit through just last week. It's poorly shot throughout on cheap-looking cameras which shoot footage that is far too dark for the most part.

In any case, TEN VIOLENT WOMEN is an inane film with little plot and some truly terrible acting to behold. A group of women go around committing various robberies and the like before they're busted and sent to a sleazy prison. At this point all of the prison film clichés come out, like the cat fights, the butch guards, and the sadistic warden. Mikels throws a handful of grubby underwear and later topless scenes into his film in a bid to draw in the exploitation crowd, but as with BLOOD ORGY, this is surprisingly tame viewing. It's also a rubbish film with practically no redeeming values whatsoever.

In Director Ted V. Mikels' TEN VIOLENT WOMEN, the Maestro forays into the world of the Women In Prison movie. He succeeds brilliantly, since women do end up in prison.

A mining accident sends a crew of women into a life of crime. Their spree of heists includes the high-heeled spiking death of a lowlife "fence", played by Mikels himself! Drug deals, flamenco dancing, and arrests ensue.

In the slammer, we're introduced to the "head screw", Bri Terry (Georgia Morgan), and her ex-lunch lady guard squad. Terry is a meanie pants with certain "ideas" about the females in her charge. Sadism and weirdness take place. Thankfully, the big finale contains much needed belly dancing.

With this film, the Director has chosen to forgo such trifles as sound, lighting, production, acting, or any semblance of a story line. Instead, he just turns on the camera and lets it all fly! Otherwise, this could never have become the miraculous shambles that it is.

In the galaxy of sub-sludge cinema, Mikels' star burns very bright. He has a real knack for this sort of stuff. Whether that's a good thing or not is left to posterity...

A troupe of young ladies get fed up with their jobs and a moronic, grunting-pig co-worker, and decide to embark on a life of crime. Pulling off the theft of roughly $1,000,000 worth of jewels, they turn to a fence to try to get rid of the gems. But he insists on a trade instead of a cash deal, and they end up with a few bags worth of heroin. Later, the leader of the gang drunkenly tries to unload the drugs - but the buyers turn out to be undercover cops! Thus, the whole gang ends up in stir, where after repeated abuse from the head guard (Georgia Morgan), they plot an escape.

"Ten Violent Women" is one of those trash films that tries to have it both ways, acting as both exploitation and female empowerment. It runs through its paces adequately, but is of no distinction. Making up for the lack of finesse displayed by filmmaker Ted V. Mikels is a largely female cast who deliver enthusiastic (if not particularly competent) performances. The antagonists are especially noteworthy, with Morgan as the kind of authority figure who lusts after some of her inmates and is willing to do favors provided the inmates accommodate her. Also amusing is the very butch Jane Farnsworth as a Bible-thumping guard. Mikels himself appears on screen in a brief supporting role as the sleazy fence, whose comeuppance involves being stomped to death. Sally Alice Gamble is a hoot as the fierce but none-too-bright Sheila, the aforementioned chief instigator.

Exceedingly silly, with dopey chapter headings ("The Chase Begins....."), a sheik character who wants to get back his precious scarab, overbearing stock music, poor lighting, a dearth of true nudity, and so-so pacing. But the bottom line is that if you just can't get enough of female crime flicks, or women in prison features, you may be forgiving of the flaws with this thing.

Five out of 10.

There are plenty of directors who could make a crime comedy/women in prison movie as bad as "10 Violent Women," but only Ted V. Mikels could make it a chore to watch.

The titular women (initially eight, not 10) are working as gold miners (seriously) at the movie's opening, but when the one man on the crew detonates some dynamite and almost kills one of the women, they decide, naturally, to turn to crime—"with class"—for easy money. So they rob a jewelry store, though for all their talk of wanting easy money their plan is unnecessarily complex, involving decoys, disguises and one working on the inside (I think; the storytelling is only slightly less murky than the lighting). Usually when robberies have such elaborate set-ups the goal is to make off with the loot without the victim realizing she or he has been ripped off until the thieves are long gone. But apparently that's too stealthy for our violent women, so they end up holding the store owner up at gunpoint anyway, taking his "assistant" (who may—or may not—be one of the violent women) hostage. They ditch their wigs and stolen limo in an alley then, after stopping in a park for a lame water gun fight, our women head for Vegas to fence the stolen goods. Sheila (Sally Alice Gamble) is the one who seems to have some connections, in that she knows a guy who sorta knows another guy, so she arranges to sell the stolen jewels to Leo (Mr. Mikels himself, making a much better impression as an actor than director). When Leo tries to pay the women in bags of cocaine, they attack him and leave with the jewels and cocaine—but not before Sheila finishes him off by stomping her high heeled shoe into his chest.

Besides being the movie's high point, the death by high heels scene is the demarcation line when "10 Violent Women" goes from "so bad it might actually be kind of fun" to "Oh, God, when will this thing be over?" Sheila is the older one of the group (one online reviewer accurately described her as looking like Mrs. Roper on "Three's Company") but she's not the smartest. After getting blitzed on tequila, she approaches two men in a bar and asks if they'd be interested in buying the coke, even though it's so obvious they're cops they might as well be in uniform. In short order: Sheila is killed when resisting arrest, three more girls escape and the remaining four end up in prison, where they join forces with two inmates (so I guess it does add up to 10 violent women after all). The prison sequence should be where we find the movie's moneyshots. But in "10 Violent Women," it's when it becomes a tedious bore, skimping on all the WIP staples: nudity, sex and violence. Only Georgia Morgan as the obligatory sadistic lesbian warden makes much of an impression. A mature woman with a blond pompadour, dragon lady nails and a cigarette-cured rasp, Morgan delivers the movie's best performance and would have been a perfect addition to John Waters' stable of actors. Unfortunately for her, "10 Violent Women" is Morgan's only movie.

Predictably the girls escape, their plan so easily executed you kind of wonder why no one tried breaking out sooner. The movie ends as stupidly as it began, with a twist that's only slightly less ludicrous than a group of women dressed as "Charlie's Angels" rejects working as gold miners in the 1970s.

It wouldn't have taken much to make "10 Violent Women" watchable: replacing a few members of the cast, if not for acting ability then for physical attributes (most of the women are fairly average looking); better lighting (or even just lighting); and more—a lot more—sex, nudity and violence. Some character development and imaginative storytelling would be a nice touch, too. Instead, "10 Violent Women" is a slog, its primary redeeming feature being retroactively making Mikels' earlier work ("Girl in Gold Boots," "The Doll Squad") seem artfully crafted by comparison.