Statuesque Brigitte Nielsen does a convincing impersonation of Sybil Danning in her heyday in this ludicrous exploitation opus.
A narrator intones that in the "sovereign state of Czechoslovakia" over the last seven months, 11 beautiful young women have been set up, arrested, tried, and sentenced to ten-year drug-possession terms in Razik Prison, a "decaying remnant of the Communist regime." The latest comely victim is
American tourist Alex (Kimberley Kates), whose sister Susan (Kari Whitman) goes to American diplomatic official Franklin Goff (Paul Koslo), who offers little help. Razik is run with an iron hand by drug-addict warden Magda Kassar (Nielsen), with the help of her sadistic lover and inmate trustie
Rosa Schmidt (Jana Svandova), both of whom look lustfully upon newcomer Alex. She is befriended by two other prisoners, Tina (Lucie Benes) and the Shakespeare-quoting transvestite Bobo (David Buonantony). Razik's sordid secrets are legion: Magda supplies girls for porn-video productions, during
some of which a mystery torturer kills them on-camera, and also as prostitutes for a local swank casino, while Rosa puts the inmates to work nude in preparing drugs for sale and export.
On the outside, Susan teams up with Stefan (Marek Vasut), whose sister has been killed by the torturer, to investigate Razik. With Bobo's help, they eventually invade the prison and help set off a riot. Magda kills the jealous, power-mad Rosa, Goff turns out to be implicated in the schemes, and
the secret sadist killer, who earlier sliced up Tina, is revealed as the judge of the court. In the melee, Stefan and Susan rescue Alex, Magda is shot by an inmate, and Goff is beaten and arrested.
Somewhat surprisingly, Brigitte (RED SONJA) Nielsen, with her butch haircut and severe gray-striped suit, swaggers rather uncertainly through this overripe melange of nudity, sex, and drugs, the cumulative effect of which is fairly depressing. As perhaps befits the '90s exploitation film,
director and co-producer Lloyd Simandl and screenwriter Christopher Hyde dwell at length on the film's seamier elements--drugs, torture, and S&M sex (while still incorporating such familiar, innocent genre requisites as nude shower scenes and Frederick's of Hollywood sexy lingerie)--and miss the
fun of the late '60s and '70s Roger Corman/AIP-style women-in-prison pictures. The acting is uniformly hysterical, but beyond the heavy breathing, Simandl (ULIMATE DESIRES) stages the action--a car chase scene and the prison riot--in tiresome fashion. There are no surprises in Hyde's screenplay
but many improbabilities, such as the flawless audio when Bobo wiretaps Magda's quarters, or the previously low-rent team of Stefan and Susan showing up to burst through the prison's gates in a spanking new armored vehicle. Vera Flak's editing is additionally often incomprehensible, with awkward
cross-cutting between sequences in an obvious attempt to cover up gaping holes in the narrative. To answer the question on potential viewers' minds, unlike all the other cast members, Nielsen does no nude scenes, but displays copious cleavage. The direct-to-video and pay-cable film, financed in
Canada, was shot mostly in Prague with a Czech crew and is pretty much a remake of the (better) 1983 CHAINED HEAT, starring Linda Blair. (Graphic violence, extensive nudity, sexual situations, substance abuse, profanity.) leave a comment
