Violenza in un carcere femminile
a.k.a. Chicks in Chains, Emanuelle In Prison, Emanuelle Reports From Women's Prison, Caged Women, Women's Penitentiary 4
directed by Vincent Dawn (Bruno Mattei)
Cast: Laura Gemser, Gabriele Tinti, Maria Romano, Ursula Flores, Lorraine De Salle
Once again, Laura Gemser sheds her clothes to play the Black Emanuelle character. This installment has the Indonesian born hottie free-lancing for Amnesty International and going undercover as a convicted prostitute to expose the infamous prison shenanigans at one of those unnamed euro hellholes. The problem is Emanuelle doesn’t bother telling anyone which lesbian lockdown she has chosen for incarceration! Once inside, she is looked over by Gemser’s real life husband and often co-star, Gabriele Tinti, who is not only the prison M.D. but also serving a life sentence for euthanizing his dying wife in a final act of compassion. Emanuelle lights a spark in the good doctor and a bond is quickly struck. This may sound all warm and fuzzy, but this isn’t a call for prison reform nor is it your typical Emmanuelle soft core erotica.
This is pure unfiltered 0sleaze at it’s boiling over best. Director Mattei even admits that his inspiration was one thing only. Money. I must admit, for a 5 week 67,000 dollar production, Mattei delivers a lifetime of filth. Right off the bat he crams every frame with such kinetic sex and violence the bodily fluids almost leap from the screen. Each moment of debauchery is kicked up a notch by piling on even seedier elements that quite often had this jaded viewer’s jaw hitting the linoleum. When the head guard decides to initiate the abuse the script calls for by making Emanuelle clean toilets with an old bucket of shit, not only does she throw it on two prison matrons but the scene turns into a threeway scatfight. When the head guard forces two inmates to carpet munch, she snorts cocaine, gives herself a self inflected purple nurple, and then beats the piss out of them with a nightstick as the whole cellblock starts to orgasm! When the nympho wardress, Cannibal Ferox’s Lorraine De Salle, is taking it from behind by chief inspector Jacques Stany (After the Fall of New York), she watches through a secret window as two mail inmates brutally rape a female inmate. Sadean comic relief is supplied by a homosexual convict who visits the doctor complaining about how rough the brutes are on his poop shute. When a female inmate decides to give the boys in the yard a cell window striptease, the jailhouse queen gets jealous, swishes around making a fuss and then gets beaten to a bloody pulp.
Yeah, this is suppose to be comic relief. Whew! Everything in this flick is masterfully shot for the most offensive lingering effect. When Emanuelle’s identity is discovered the warden starts slipping her poison java. Not one to waste an opportunity, Mattei shoots her vomiting oatmeal chunks from head on. Emanuelle is tortured in a giant bell like cylinder that guards can beat on complete with a small viewing door so we can see her agonizing face in tight close-up. Stabbings, beatings, catfights, rapes, and more all gleefully enhanced with tempura paint fake blood is skillfully composed. Lull in the film? Throw someone off a cliff. Need to get the guards attention? Stab a dyke to death. What do you juxtapose with plot development? Tons of lesbian sex and buckets of blood. There isn’t time for one dull second on this shot schedule, and the real show stopper foreshadows Mattei’s 1984 Post Apocalyptic biker opus Rat’s A Night of Terror.
Gemser is thrown into a cell of gigantic greased up black rats which appear to have small lights shined into their eyes to make their peepers glow red. The effect is pretty damn impressive. The rodents gnaw her body and crawl through her bloody stockings like her luscious body was made of peanut butter. Throughout the atrocities on display there are little twist that manage to keep this tired genre fresh. For example, in many W.I.P. flicks, there is one inmate who has an object like a doll or a pet mouse that is a metaphor for their innocence. When this object is destroyed by the antagonist, the heroine usually steps up to the plate and exacts some form of revenge for this mindless act of cruelty. The script cleverly reverses this cliche by having Emanuelle’s elderly cellmate keeping a pet cockroach that even disgust her. When the Gromphadorhina portentosa is inevitably destroyed by the head guard, the old bag risks her life for Emanuelle and sets her own wrath in motion. The script always stays within some absurd male fantasy. I had to laugh in bewilderment when Emanuelle and the good doctor finally hook up during a failed prison break.
Our gal has been repeatedly beaten, raped, wrestled in caca and eaten by rats, yet her collapsed loins still long for some sensitive tool! I’ve been dating women who get frigid when the toilet seat is left up! What have I been thinking. Someone throw me in a Italian Hellhole. Regardless of the low budget the production itself looks great. The rundown exterior locations filmed around Lazio, Italy help invoke a corrupt decaying penal system and provide a seamless match with the interior scenes at De Paolis Studios (where a few Argento, Fulci, and Lenzi classics were shot) in Rome. Luis Ciccarese’s cinematography is full of rich black and blue hues that helps the spaghetti sauce stand out and mask some of the physical deficiencies of the ladies. Luigi Ceccarelli’s score rips off enough Goblin Eurogore licks to really add a level of bonafide creepiness to the proceedings. Bruno Mattei and the cast of Violence in a Women's Prison would return for an equally depraved Emmanuelle prison flick called Women’s Prison Massacre. Hat’s off or should I say pants off to Mr. Mattei and the anorexic Gemser (who continued to play the Emanuelle character in official and unofficial capacity 19 times!) for delivering a completely mindless piece of exploitive trash with absolutely no socially redeeming qualities whatsoever. Unlike Jess Franco, give Bruno a little money and he will live up to the films title and the seedy poster art. Raise your pints and chant Maestro Mattei because Violence in a Women's Prison is a thoughtful taboo parading masterpiece.