Italian director Bruno Mattei wasn't exactly a great director, but he stayed true to his colours, proudly flying the exploitation flag right to the very end, and for that, he has my respect. The man made his share of dross, but from time to time, he would turn out a hugely entertaining piece of trash. The Jail: The Women's Hell is one such film.
As the title suggests, this is a women in prison film, a genre Mattei had touched upon with his Nazisploitation movies of the '70s, and fully embraced with Violence in a Women's Prison (1982) and Womens Prison Massacre (1983). Mattei knows what is required of him, and duly ticks the boxes: sadistic warden, sneering guards, sexy prisoners, lesbian inmates, forced labour, communal showers and brutal punishment are all present and incorrect. But as someone who has seen more than a few WIP movies, I found all of this rather pedestrian, and hoped that Mattei would raise his game. He doesn't disappoint...
Mattei turns the second half of his film into a super gory version of The Most Dangerous Game, a handful of prisoners escaping into the jungle, pursued by a group of armed, maniacally laughing and very sadistic men. The escapees are caught one by one, in lethal traps, or alive and then mutilated: a spiked booby trap kills one prisoner; another is impaled on a stake, Cannibal Holocaust style; the terrified fugitives find one of their friends with a large knife rammed between her legs; the men use a girl for target practice; they tie another to a tree, cut out her tongue and slice off her breasts. And when one of the women manages to stab one of the gun-toting goons in the crotch with a large knife, he retaliates by pulling the blade out and decapitating her. All of this is very graphic and very bloody: exactly what I want from a Mattei movie.
Technically, the film is fairly poor, with shoddy cinematography, terrible acting and wholly inappropriate music, but this only adds to the sleazy exploitation vibe. With wall-to wall nudity, over the top characters, and an excess of violence, The Jail: The Women's Hell is definitely one of the director's more outrageously enjoyable efforts - fans of his work will not be disappointed.
5.5/10 for the first half, 8.5/10 for the second half - which averages out at a very reasonable 7/10.
