Sei mong gam yuk

The scariest thing about this MIP (Men in Prison) torturefest is the fact that it was directed by Hugo Ng. For the uninitiated, who may not be familiar with Hugo, he was the raping, incest-loving father in the "Daughters of Darkness" films and the "Brother of Darkness" in that nasty little exercise in perversion. The image of him screaming directions at actors through a bullhorn on location for this film is a troubling one for me. This fairly obscure pic was sold to me as "really nasty" by a fellow cinephile. Unfortunately, it isn't. There are a few scenes of torture and the tone is bleak, but it's nothing out of the ordinary and doesn't hold a candle to the, admittedly, more deliberately over-the-top but entertaining "The Story of Ricky". Why anybody would make a prison film so devastatingly bland is beyond me.

It's not the best prison movie in existence but it does make jail seem like a pretty unappealing place. But the best reason to see this film is Richard Grosse's over the top performance. He makes Frank Booth look like a TeleTubbie (an evil sadistic TeleTubbie that would be written out of the show after making Tinkie Winkie...you get the picture). Mr. Grosse rants, raves and curses his way into one of the best performances I have had the pleasure of watching in quite some time. From the first shot of him, you know this guy is one squirrelly warden. He does a number of unpleasant things to these unlucky prisoners but the movie's shining moment comes when he deals (like a man I might add) with his sexual inadequacy with women and men. I think if the studios had any sense they would be casting him in the next two Star Wars films as Han Solo.