Sweet goody goody two shoes Janie (a perky and appealing portrayal by Laurie Watton) goes to the worst prison in the Philippines to find her missing sister Callista (very fetching tall drink of water Lauren Graham). While incarcerated at this brutal women's penitentiary Janie meets a colorful array of female felons, discovers that mad scientist Dr. Hurtrider (wildly overplayed with deliciously hammy relish by Travis Willingham) is using the inmates as guinea pigs for his nefarious experiments, and, naturally, finds time to take a lot of showers.Director Barak Epstein, who also co-wrote the cheerfully inane script with Mike Wiebe, keeps the enjoyably silly story moving along at a zippy pace, maintains an amiable blithely kitschy tongue-in-cheek tone throughout (the running gags about an on-screen shower time clock and blatant product place in particular are quite inspired), and delivers plenty of over-the-top gore along with the expected tasty gratuitous distaff nudity. Moreover, Epstein certainly covers all the pleasingly trashy babes-behind-bars bases: We've got flesh-eating zombies, sadistic guards, nude gals in the shower, a catfight in the mud, a gaggle of bored ninjas who are desperate for action, and a climactic breakout. The enthusiastic cast have a ball with the wacky material, with especially spirited contributions from Rhonda Shear as friendly and horny top con Jackpot, Lloyd Kaufman as sleazy guard Liebowitz, Louisa Lawless as the crazy Cross Eye, Tina Parker as the flatulent Breezy, and Wiebe as the hopeless nerdy warden Wilbur Thorn. Mary Woronov has a funny bit as the ruthless Dyanne She-Bitch Slutface. Ilram Choi almost steals the whole show with his uproarious turn as an overzealous ninja. A real hoot.

In a short interview included in the DVD extras of "Prison A-Go-Go!", the very young director comes across as a pleasant guy who is also very knowledgeable about B-movies, and especially Women-In-Prison films. However, the fact that you LOVE movies does not necessarily mean that you should MAKE movies. "Prison A-Go-Go!" plays like a very bad Troma flick - and speaking of Troma, Lloyd Kaufman does not belong in front of the camera, he can barely keep a straight face at his own (embarrassingly unfunny) jokes. Mary Woronov, the other big "name" of the cast, appears only in the first 5 minutes. The film has zero production values, taste, and, most importantly, laughs (the "shower clock" is a good idea on paper, except that all the shower scenes are some of the most uninspiring I've ever seen), but some of the girls are cute, so I'll give it 0.5 out of 4 stars. If you do get the DVD, look for the Q&A sessions with Roger Corman and Mary Woronov among the extra features.

Unfortunately, I missed the first few minutes of this film, so I can't comment on the beginning (I came in on the scene where she can't kill the baby), but the rest of the film is hilarious.All the WIP clichés were there- A woman looking for her sister in jail getting arrested on purpose.The leering jail guard, The butch bully, the cafeteria fight scene, the shower scenes, the big escape scene towards the end, the mad doctor experimenting on the inmates, I completely missed Mary Wuronov's character, but I assume she played the tough dyke warden, etc.... The young guy as the new warden was great, as well as the crazy prison doctor and the Barbra Streisand-type inmate. The punk band scene was a pisser, and there's a lot of jazz in the score featuring a baritone sax (like "I Want To Live" with Susan Hayward and Gerry Mulligan on the soundtrack?).I don't think a total spoof of WIP flicks has been done before, but there have been a lot of partial spoofs. Hopefully this director will do more of the same.

If you take this movie for what it is worth, it is actually quite fun. It was meant to make fun of the classic 70's prison movies. It does that in spades. This movie isn't meant to be some deep, great blockbuster. If you go into it thinking that, you will get burned. However, if your looking for a mildly amusing, gratuitous nudity filled movie to waste a couple of hours, then this is for you. The acting is quite poor, but thats to be expected out of a no-budget movie. The sound is also atrocious, but that may have just been the copy I was watching. I especially liked the countdown clock that informs viewers of when the next shower scene will take place. The product placement was brilliant. Besides, there just aren't enough movies about mad doctors turning hot women into porcupines.