Cellule 9

The reputation of explo-surrealist Jess Franco's penchant for sadism and cruelty largely rests on the four Women In Prison films he made almost back to back in the late '70s. Far from the 'intellectual' flaunting of 'Succubus' or the dream-like aura of 'Vampyros Lesbos', Franco's works like 'Ilsa: Absolute Power', 'Barbed Wire Dolls', '99 Women' and this film, reveal his fascination with unabashed sadism and humiliation without distraction.

Granted a couple of other filmmakers have far surpassed this film in terms of hyper-shocking violence (Guinea Pig anyone?), but the latent nihilism and hatred of Franco's entire oeuvre comes out in spades in 'Cell Block 9'.

Granted, it's highly inartistic, very cheap and mainly a smörgåsbord of cruel scenarios depicting a woman's political prison in the jungle and the cruel warden who rules it with an iron fist. There is a message in the sense that you can feel Franco's outrage regarding prisoners of conscience, but there's no unifying statement here, political or otherwise.

For those who like Franco's skewed view of human sexuality but can do without the heady surrealism, this is a pretty good film to watch, especially if you're curious about what happens when the Master takes his gloves off and gets dirty. Also, for you hardcore Franco fans, if you thought 99 Women and Barbed-Wire Dolls was a little 'soft', you'll be redeemed here. Recommended for Franco fans.

** Franco WIP again, though probably the softest of his excursion into caged women territory, Barbed Wire Dolls & Ilsa: Absolute Power especially being far crueler in their low budget visions of iron bar hotels for femmes. Still it's amazingly sleazy even for exploitation hell, where women spend ALL their time undressed & in a constant state of humiliation, a sheen of sweat adorning their nubile bodies, in a fast dash through the jungle or chained like dogs to a wall. It's strangely asexual but that pervy kink is always present, like the feeling you used to get sneaking downstairs to catch a late night baby blue while your parents were sleeping soundly. Naked women, power dynamics, sadism? No surprise this sub-genre found a kindred spirit in the likes of our director, zooming in on hairy crotches & pained-racked faces every chance he gets. Pulp adventure magazines filtered through the anything- goes 70's: that's Franco & it's genuinely unnerving because you can almost feel him getting off in staging these sick fantasies of submission & control. There's no budget to provide a slick sheen of commercialism, no blunt to the impact & its not like he's ever been very aesthetically formal either (to say the least).Its that jazz-riff quality that makes him invigorating & exotic for all his movies' awfulness, but also pervy-uncle creepy too; you don't have to look further than the bag-over-the-head bit from Ilsa to see what I mean, or the strapped-to-the-electrified bed, pi$$-in-the-chamber-pot from Barbed Wire Dolls. These are some dank psycho-sexual depths right here.

Again it's all lovably rinky-dink, paint blots for bullet wounds, sound effects for gunshots, Howard Vernon for depth. Its power derives from extremity, stark female objectification you don't see much outside of XXX. The women are denied even the dignity of clothing while at the whim of their evil keepers & its that kind of porno rationale that makes you envision Franco pissing himself happy staging these adolescent jerk-off skits, leaning over to fondle dear Linay while operating the camera. There's a weird kind of dedication here you won't see in the average impersonal WIP, something that lends a certain weight when usually these flicks are forgotten the moment you see them.

Otherwise the three or four women were all lovely to watch (Karine Gambier is so ethereal albino white she glows) & provided more of a presence than the usual non-Romay joint musters, adorable Susan Hemingway especially. I cared a bit more about what happened to this one dimensional lot & so the ending was very depressing but par for course.

This movie begins with a small group of women being transported by truck into a South American jungle so that they can join up with a band of revolutionaries. Unfortunately, they are captured by government soldiers and three of them are sent to a female prison hidden far from civilization. While there they are tortured in the hope that one of them will disclose information about the revolutionaries that the government can use. As far as this movie is concerned over half of the movie focuses on the torture aspects at the expense of everything else. To be sure there is quite a bit of nudity and it isn't all bad-especially with regards to Karine Gambier (as "Karine") and Susan Hemingway ("Maria"). But some of these torture scenes ran on much too long which resulted in a film that never realized the potential it clearly had. Additionally, some of those same scenes were just plain disgusting as well. In any case, I thought it could have been a better movie and as a result I rate this film as below average.

This sexploiter was quite clearly made for the sex & gore crowd. Thus we have here several beautiful women (nude most of the time), who are imprisoned and raped and tortured and raped and killed and raped. Completely lacking in this film is a source of reference, a coordinate system in which we could place any of these people. There are no answers to questions such as "Why?", or "Where from?", regarding any of the characters. They don't have a future, a past, a motivation, a connection to any kind of life as we know it. In a way, they are like some of these alien societies encountered once (and only once) by Captain Kirk in one of the Star Trek episodes.

We normally criticise movie characters as two-dimensional when they are underwritten - here even "one-dimensional" would give too much credit, as they don't move in space, time, or behaviour. Thus there wasn't much acting skill asked of the cast and thus they have no problems coping with this very limited demand; especially Howard Vernon is (as ever) excellent at portraying unpleasant people of the sinister kind.

Compared to other Franco flicks the cinematography is exceptionally good (none of his trademark out-of-focus zooms) and at times even inspirational. The sets are fine too, although it has to be said that torturing instruments that are meant to aid interrogation completely fail their purpose if they almost instantaneously kill.

A group of women led by Karine Levere is caught by the warden of a women's prison,located somewhere in the South American jungle.None of them will reveal the secrets of their organization or the names of their collaborators in the cities,so they are handed over to Dr.Costa who,after four years inactivity in Europe,is delighted to be able to practice his torture techniques once more.Laverne fails to resist the inhuman treatments and reveals all.The only hope of saving the organization is for the girls to warn the city cell before it's too late.They trick the prison guard into having sex with them,knock him out and break out of prison.The warden and Dr.Costa must prevent them from revealing the practices inside the prison,so the hunt begins."Women In Cellblock 9" is an enjoyable exploitation film made by Jesus Franco.The script is terrible,but it serves as a pretext for showing lots of full-frontal nudity,sexuality and some rather nasty torture sequences.The film was produced by Erwin C.Dietrich,but it's not as memorable as "Barbed Wire Dolls".Franco regular Howard Vernon is perfect as a sadistic Dr.Costa and Susan Hemingway is a stunning beauty.So if you are ready for some fun sleazy thrills give this film a look.8 out of 10.