Metacritic reviews

Starring Linda Blair and the late Tamara Dobson, it's the ultimate women-in-prison movie and a landmark of exploitation cinema. [02 Oct 2009]

A silly, almost campy follow-up to producer Billy Fine's women's prison hit, The Concrete Jungle, that manages to pack in enough sex tease and violent action to satisfy undiscriminating action fans.

Linda Blair finds herself locked-up in this women-in-prison cheez fest. The warden has a hot tub in his office and Stella Stevens cracks the whip.

The combination of the graphic if meaningless title, Miss Blair and the incomparably funny Miss Stevens is almost irresistible. I should have resisted more. [05 Jun 1983, p.19]

Chained Heat is your basic visit to the snakepit, with a few twists. One is the presence of Linda Blair, as the innocent (she's in for vehicular homicide, "an accident," which makes her cell-hardened fellow inmates snicker with anticipation). Another is that rarely in the history of either movies or the penal system have prison officials and guards been seen to be quite this despicable. [30 May 1983, p.D5]

Just another excuse for mindless sex and violence: as if we needed one.