Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

gavin6942 Framed for the murder of a record company president in 1952 Hollywood, young, aspiring singer Aggie O'Hanlon (Missy Crider) is sentenced to life in prison and tries to adjust to her life behind bars in a hellish women's prison where she is befriended by other "lifer" inmates who help her out when Aggie finds herself marked for murder by an unknown source who thinks she knows more about the murder than she does.From director John McNaughton, best known for "Henry Portrait of Serial Killer" and "Wild Things", and with one of his regular actors, Tom Towles. This seems far beneath McNaughton, but then, the series seemed far beneath everyone who was involved (Joe Dante, John Milius, Robert Rodriguez).This was part of the "Rebel Highway" series that was supposed to be edgy updates of 1950s B-films. Most ended up being cheesy and campy rather than edgy, and this is no exception. Of course, much of this is the low budget (not much over one million) and McNaughton was lucky he happened to convince Sam Fuller to write the script -- Fuller was a genre writer whose work dated back to the 1930s. And there is a brief shower scene that would not have slid in the 50s... but the language is surprisingly clean for a prison.Ione Skye has a decent sized part, and Anne Heche has a small but important role. For those looking for some star power, their interaction might be the highlight of the film. (Oddly, despite her impressive list of credits, Missy Crider does not seem to be considered a star.)

Robert J. Maxwell I don't know why I bought this DVD, possibly because it was inexpensive, but, having bought it, I felt compelled to see it through. Well, come to think of it, maybe I bought it see Anne Heche take a nude shower. Everyone needs reassurance from time to time that he's not a person of the opposite sex trapped in the wrong body, although, admittedly, any judgment made on the basis of a response to Anne Heche in the nude is problematic.I can't imagine which audience this was aimed at. There are a couple of shots that are actually in jokes. Every time one of our heroines is sentenced to a prison term there is a whirling newspaper that finally stops and tells us things like, MELBA GETS LIFE IN PRISON! Okay, that is some retro stuff and elicits a smile from the viewer who's familiar with old movie techniques. The problem is that the people who "get" the joke will have a really difficult time sitting through the rest of this seriocomic garbage. And the sorts of minds that enjoy the story of imprisoned girls screaming and rioting are unlikely to be familiar with spinning newspapers from the old black-and-white movies of the 1930s.You want a hint of what passes for the plot? Aggie -- Melissa Lahlita Crider -- is framed for the murder of a pop music entrepreneur and imprisoned for life. The music man was, in fact, stabbed sixteen times by Heche, who made off with Aggie's sure-fire pop music hit, "Endless Sleep." Aggie acquires a private eye to locate the real killer, not knowing that Heche is the miscreant. Heche hires a "hit girl" to off Aggie in prison. When that fails, Heche disguises herself and arranges for a short term in the same slams, so she can eliminate the noisome Aggie herself. It all goes wrong for Heche. Aggie is released and returns to the prison later to sing "Endless Sleep" for the cheering inmates, while the viewer shakes off that urge to snooze.It was written, evidently, by Sam Fuller and there's no question that the movie has the kind of zip we associate with his name. The performances are deliberate parodies of real performances although sometimes, as in the case of Melissa Lahlita Crider, it's hard to tell because only the rudiments of a performance are on display. Heche certainly knows what she's doing but I'm not sure about the rest, except for Nestor Serrano as a crime figure who is pure prosciutto. It's a marvelous experience, watching him run off at the hands.This brief assessment may be a little confusing, so I'll end with one example of what you might expect to see. Melba, played by Bahni Turpin, as in "Where do they get these names?", is a nice girl who is driven mad by a newscaster on television. She runs to the studio, is introduced to the man while on the air, produces a hidden hammer and whacks him repeatedly on the skull. The studio erupts. And a nameless woman rushes up to the camera, her palms against her cheeks, and screams directly into the lens for a long time. We can practically hear Edvard Munch moaning in his casket, "I didn't mean to do it!"

horrorfilmx Quasi-remake of the 1950s film of the same name directed by Edward ("Fast Eddy") Cahn. I was impressed to see Samuel Fuller's name in the writing credits but disappointed by the results. There are lots of Fuller-style quirky lines and off-beat twists but they come off more like someone imitating Fuller than Fuller himself. Parts of this movie (especially the truly unbelievable climax) defy belief. Other parts simply make no sense at all. I think the main problem is a director who doesn't actually get the jokes in his own movie, never a good thing. Ione Skye gets top billing but actually has little more than a minor supporting role. She gets to do a bush league version of James Cagney's mad scene from WHITE HEAT but she's no Cagney. The other girls come off a little better. Bahni Turpin is charming and attractive and does a pretty decent job but the movie really belongs to Anne Heche. She plays a stereotypical film noir femme fatale/whack-job (at one point even adopting the alias "Gilda") and carries it off with style and assurance. And yeah, you get to see her boobs in the shower scene. They'e very nice.

lastliberal There are two shower scenes where we are treated to incredible views of my favorite psychologist (Anne Heche from Prozac Nation) and the lovely Ione Skye. This was definitely not a CBS Schoolbreak Special with Missy Crider and TV regular Bahni Turpin.Outside of these shower scenes was the cheesiest dialog that I have ever heard. I cannot believe this movie even had a script. I am sure the actresses were told just told use whatever cheesy prison dialog you can think of. It was painful to listen to. They threw in dialog about the Korean War and McCathyism to set the times, but it was just terrible.It would have been a much better production if they had 80 minutes of shower scenes and 3 minutes of dialog, instead of the other way around.