Chained Heat (1983) * 1/2 (out of 4) Ten years after becoming a star with THE EXORCIST, Linda Blair got top billing for this women-in-prison flick. In the film she plays a sweet young woman who commits a crime and has to spend a year and a half in prison. This prison is full of wicked women, crazy guards and a perverted warden (John Vernon). In terms of American WIP films this one here goes pretty far out but it still can't hold a candle to the various Euro films like Jess Franco's BARBED WIRE DOLLS, SADOMANIA or even any of the ILSA movies. With that said, there's a certain amount of charm that comes with seeing Blair and Vernon doing a movie like this but that's not enough to keep this thing moving throughout the running time. The biggest problem is that the film itself doesn't know what it wants to be. The film starts off extremely corny with all sorts of silly fights, girls cussing at one another and even a shower scene, which is a must for this type of movie. The word exploitation is all over the picture but around the half way mark the film takes a more serious note as it tries to tackle the corruption going on inside the prison. Blair gives a fairly good performance but she has several crying scenes where you can't help but feel bad for her and this isn't the type of feelings that need to be in a WIP film. We really don't need these type of dramatics when the film sets out to be exploitation. Vernon was a real hoot in his pervert role and you can obviously tell that he is enjoying his character and the hot tub he has in the office to sleep with the female prisoners. For fans of filth there's still enough here to enjoy, although it certainly falls into the "so bad it's good" league. Blair's shower sequence has become rather legendary in terms of exploitation over the years but it was somewhat of a letdown.

In spite of the undeservedly and even ridiculously low rating of 3.7 out of 10 here on this website, at least most of the reviewers seem to agree with me that this is simply one of the greatest (undoubtedly even THE greatest) so-called "Women in Prison" exploitation classic ever made. Seriously, this sick puppy has literally everything you could possibly be looking for in a sleazy & shoddy exploitation flick: raw action, extreme violence, suspense, wondrously stereotypical characters, gratuitous nudity, steaming hot sex footage, campy music, suitably filthy set pieces and gloriously over-the-top performances from a dreamy all-star B-movie cast. Unlucky cherubic beauty Carol Henderson must serve 18 months in prison following a deadly car accident she caused, but she never could have dreamed she would end up in the most derailed and improperly run women's prison facility in the world! All sorts of putrid and impure business take place in this institution and, even worse, everyone gets away with everything! The head warden Bacman (John Vernon in an awesomely sneering role) built his office into a luxurious loft where he shoots private sex film starring the inmates and forces them to snitch on the others. His first captain – Stella Stevens – desperately wants to steal his position and does whatever she can to frame him. She and her lover Lester (played by Henry Silva who's the personification of sleaze) also run a very profitable escort service for which he smoothly sneaks out prisoners and rents them out to wealthy customers. Then there's another duo of wardens who pay tough chick Ericka (Sybil Danning) to rape and abuse defenseless new arrivals and then, last but not least of course, there's the usual type of conflicts between the prisoners mutually. You know; the gang of Ericka versus the black girls led by the tall-legged Tamara Dobson and Linda Blair's diplomatic attempts to unite them all together against the prison authorities. "Chained Heat" is a stupendously terrific and ultra-trashy classic in the field of 80's exploitation classics. Writer/director Paul Nicholas clearly wanted to pay tribute to the preceding 'Women in Prison' movies of the seventies (like, for example "Caged Heat" and "The Big Bird Cage") but actually surpassed all those titles in terms of dementia and sheer entertainment value. The film provides full frontal female nudity every couple of minutes and even the slightly more prominent ladies in the cast aren't too embarrassed to show a little bit of T&A. Personally, I sure as hell prefer gazing at a fully matured Linda Blair showering in prison rather than a 13-year-old version possessed by the devil and vomiting pea soup! "Chained Heat" comes with my highest possible recommendation, in case that wasn't made clear enough yet.

**SPOILERS** A somewhat chubby but very sexy looking Linda Blair as woman prisoner Carol Henderson is run through the ringer in this classic "Women in Prison" movie where she ends up not only saving the day but losing a few pounds of baby fat that she put on since growing into adulthood.Carol for her part just wants to put her time in, 18 months, for a hit and run rap where she ended up killing a pedestrian. Not knowing what she's got herself into Carol ends up engineering a major prison riot that puts an end to a reign of terror at the prison. Warden Bacman, John Vernon, running the women's prison has been also running a drug ring and using the profits to built an elaborate penthouse for himself where he entertains the women prisoners he's in charge of.Anything goes in Warden Bacman's house of horrors with the horny male prison guards paying for sex with the shapely woman prisoners. This leads at the beginning of the movie a terrified woman prisoner Susie, Jonna Lee, being gunned down when she, with a toy gun, resisted the advances of prison guard Stone,Robert Miano.It doesn't take long for a sweet and inoffensive Carol to become a hardened convict when she's messed with by not only her fellow women prisoners but by Warden Bacman who's got his eye on her. The warden likes them, his women, young and innocent and Carol is just what he's been looking for since his former prison girlfriend Debbie,Monique Gabriell, was found murdered in the prison laundry room. Debbie besides engaging in the wardens many personal pleasures, like having himself and her video taped having sex, was snitching on her fellow prisoners.We soon learn that as Warden Bacman was enjoying himself, with women booze and drugs, his second in command Captain Taylor, Stella Stevens, has been planning a coup to overthrow him and take over the prison with her pimp boyfriend Lester, Henry Silva. Meanwhile Carol has gotten in with woman prison leaders Ericka, Sybil Danning, and The Dutchess, Tamara Dobson, who despite being bitter enemies have joined together to crash out of prison before either Warden Bacman or Captain Taylor stage an unfortunate accident for both of them.One of the best,and unintentionally funny, prison films ever made "Chained Heat" really gets going when Carol whips up the women prisoners after Captain Taylor took over the prison. That was due to Warden Bacman's "accidental" drowning in his king-size bathtub. Running the prison like a concentration camp commandant Captain Taylor has the state prison administration start to put the heat on her in why so many of her inmates are ending up either dead or in the prison infirmary.With the rioting woman prisoners on the verge of taking control of the prison Carol, knowing what will put an end to Captain Taylor's dreams of power and glory, breaks into Warden Bacman's penthouse in search of the incriminating evidence that would put Captain Taylor behind bars! A hidden video tape of Captain Taylor and head woman guard Boots,Kendal Kaldwell, drowning the very drunk Warden Bacman while he's entertaining one of his woman prisoners in his hot-tub! Bacman has a tape recording system hooked up in his pad, that Captain Taylor didn't now about, that recorded everything that happened there even his murder!Without a doubt "Chained Heat" is by far the best and most hilarious womens prison movie ever made. As bad as the film is in its unbelievable story and the atrocious acting in it doesn't for a moment let its audience down. Even now, some 25 years after is initial release, "Chained Heat" has never been eclipsed, much less duplicated, in the many bad womens prison flicks that had since followed it.

Callow innocent Carol (an adorably sincere and spirited turn by Linda Blair of "The Exorcist" fame) gets sent to a brutal distaff penitentiary on a trumped-up murder charge where every atrocity under the sun from rape to lesbianism to prostitution to drug trafficking is committed with appalling regularity. Paul Nicholas' wonderfully brazen direction maintains an unflagging quick pace throughout; he also stages the action scenes with rousing go-for-it aplomb (the inevitable climactic prison riot is a real stirring corker) and elicits ripely hammy performances from a top-drawer dream B-movie cast. Said cast includes the luscious Sybil Danning as the tough predatory Ericka, the ever-slimy John Vernon as the no-count sleazy warden, Stella Steven as a strict crooked security chief, Henry Silva as a blithely disgusting pimp, the pulchritudinous Monique Gabrielle as an ill-fated cokehead snitch, Tamara Dobson as a hard-nosed black inmate, Louise Moritz as the sweetly ditsy Bubbles, and Greta Blackburn, Edy Williams, Jennifer Ashley, Sharon Hughes and Vernon's hottie blonde daughter Kate as fellow fetching cellblock sisters. Moreover, there's a pleasing plethora of yummy gratuitous nudity, with Gabrielle's steamy hot tub sex scene with Vernon and Danning's famous eye-popping shower scene rating as the definite arousing highlights. Mac Ahlberg's slick cinematography and Joseph Conlan's lively score are likewise on the money solid and effective. The ugly violence and coarse dialogue are every bit as rough and vulgar as they ought to be as well. An absolute must-see for any true trash flick aficionado.