Frauen für Zellenblock 9

Sleaziness and nudism abound in this movie with a lot of gory scenes , grisly killing and loathing frames . Somewhere in the jungles of South America mercenaries stop a truck which has supposedly loaded fruit. The cargo results to be six young girls (Karine Gambier, Susan Hemingway, Gouveia , among others) . Apprehended and handed over to the custody of the local prison wardens and jail chiefs (Howard Vernon , Dora Doll) . They are really villainous and heinous wardens who the prisoners really fear them . The unfortunate girls escape but are relentlessly chased by the most dreaded pursuers and they will stop at nothing to get their purports and at whatever means . Along the way , things go wrong . Beaten ! Shackled ! Raped ! Just another day in Cellblock 9 !

From the fevered , wonderfully perverted minds of Spanish filmmaker Jess Franco and Swiss producer Erwin C. Dietrich comes the notorious WIP shocker Frauen für Zellenblock 9 (1978) or Women in Cellblock 9 or Tropical Inferno . This is an extremely controversial movie , in fact it was and remains banned , nowadays , in the U. K. Stars Franco regulars Susan Hemingway , Howard Vernon and Karine Gambier and tells the tale of a gaggle of female freedom-fighters who are taken to a secluded women's jungle prison where they endure al manner of violent sexual humiliations . And with Howard Vernon and Dora Doll showing as two feared villain wardens at a death camp mistreating inmates and undergoing creepy criminal acts . Like all of the production in the prolific Franco/Dietrich collaboration cannon (most of which are represented in Full Moon's limited digitally and remastered uncut tranfer struck from Dietrich's own archival negative edition Jess Franco collection) this Zellenblock 9 or Cellblock 9 is a visually lush , erotic and exploitation work , armed with exotic locations , weird interpretations and dreamy musical score by Walter Baumgartner . Disagreeable movie stars the naughty as the evil doctor Howard Vernon and nasty warden Doris Coll enjoying the female prisoners and torturing them . Plot is incidental to violence , tortures and loads of nudism . Here the sinister entertainment is watching as the torture-loving wardens mistreat prisoners by using all kinds ordeals and tortures , as well as the subsequent getaway of the naked girls across the lush jungle . This is a below average and extremely sadistic film with lots of graphic gore , violence , guts and naked women.

Produced in short budget by Erwin Dietrich , the motion picture was lousily directed by Jesús Franco or Jess Frank with lots of skin and no acting , providing a boring flick in low budget with plenty of shortfalls , failures , flaws and gaps . In the Seventies Franco directed various WIP movies , such as : the revered classic ¨99 Women¨with Maria Schell , Herbert Lom , Elisa Montes , Mercedes McCambridge ; ¨Love camp¨ (1977) with Muriel Montosse , Monica Swinn ; ¨Barbed Wire Dolls¨with Lina Romay , Paul Muller , Monica Swinn ; "Wanda , The Wicked Warden" 1977 by Jess Frank with Dyanne Thorne , Lina Romay , Tania Busselier . Not for the easily offended (but what Franco movie is ?) Frauen für Zellenblock 9 (1978) is an essential and fundamental trash movie gem not to be missed for Uncle Jess enthusiasts. It is a 78 minutes of pure mind melting sleaze entertainment with no sense and for some fans being an exploitation gold .

Released almost at the end of the infamous collaboration between Jess Franco and Erwin C. Dietrech, Women in Cellblock 9 is a entertainment women in prison flick starring the gorgeous Karine Gambier, the innocent looking young actress Susan Hemingway and the great Howard Vernon.

The movie follows a group of women lead by Karine Gambier, who are captured and send to a tropical prison. In there, a female warden and the sadistic Dr. Costas (Vernon) force the girls into revealing the secrets of the organization they belong. But the women won't talk, so they torture them in various ways. After the ladies can't take it anymore, the try to escape the prison, starting a battle to survive.

While no as sleazy as Barbed Wire Dolls (1975), the movie features some good torture sequences and a lot of female nudity, to satisfy all exploitation fans. Definitely worth a look. 7/10

This sexploiter was quite clearly made for the sex & gore crowd. Thus we have here several beautiful women (nude most of the time), who are imprisoned and raped and tortured and raped and killed and raped. Completely lacking in this film is a source of reference, a coordinate system in which we could place any of these people. There are no answers to questions such as "Why?", or "Where from?", regarding any of the characters. They don't have a future, a past, a motivation, a connection to any kind of life as we know it. In a way, they are like some of these alien societies encountered once (and only once) by Captain Kirk in one of the Star Trek episodes.

We normally criticise movie characters as two-dimensional when they are underwritten - here even "one-dimensional" would give too much credit, as they don't move in space, time, or behaviour. Thus there wasn't much acting skill asked of the cast and thus they have no problems coping with this very limited demand; especially Howard Vernon is (as ever) excellent at portraying unpleasant people of the sinister kind.

Compared to other Franco flicks the cinematography is exceptionally good (none of his trademark out-of-focus zooms) and at times even inspirational. The sets are fine too, although it has to be said that torturing instruments that are meant to aid interrogation completely fail their purpose if they almost instantaneously kill.

The reputation of explo-surrealist Jess Franco's penchant for sadism and cruelty largely rests on the four Women In Prison films he made almost back to back in the late '70s. Far from the 'intellectual' flaunting of 'Succubus' or the dream-like aura of 'Vampyros Lesbos', Franco's works like 'Ilsa: Absolute Power', 'Barbed Wire Dolls', '99 Women' and this film, reveal his fascination with unabashed sadism and humiliation without distraction.

Granted a couple of other filmmakers have far surpassed this film in terms of hyper-shocking violence (Guinea Pig anyone?), but the latent nihilism and hatred of Franco's entire oeuvre comes out in spades in 'Cell Block 9'.

Granted, it's highly inartistic, very cheap and mainly a smörgåsbord of cruel scenarios depicting a woman's political prison in the jungle and the cruel warden who rules it with an iron fist. There is a message in the sense that you can feel Franco's outrage regarding prisoners of conscience, but there's no unifying statement here, political or otherwise.

For those who like Franco's skewed view of human sexuality but can do without the heady surrealism, this is a pretty good film to watch, especially if you're curious about what happens when the Master takes his gloves off and gets dirty. Also, for you hardcore Franco fans, if you thought 99 Women and Barbed-Wire Dolls was a little 'soft', you'll be redeemed here. Recommended for Franco fans.

Jesus Franco has caught a lot of flack over the years, mostly of the order of talentless sleaze fixated hack and often from people who haven't actually seen many of his films. Women in Cellblock 9 is not one of his nobler efforts and those who admire him for his atmospheres and talent for fevered headstates and lush sexuality should stay far away, it is rather a relentless rush of mean spirits and cruelty. It does strike against the talentless accusation of his critics though, being a conventionally well made and even intermittently stylish work. Plotwise there's very little here. Several women attempt to escape a totalitarian South American state but are apprehended. They are then strung up naked and occasionally tortured until a predictable finale. It isn't a set up likely to appeal to many really, unremitting sexual abuse tends to be kind of a turn off for people and characters are largely neglected so there's little to hold on to if you aren't a big sleaze fan. Fortunately I am just such a person and thus had rather a good time, the key to it being its very one dimensionality I think. Through pained faces and pleading, through mostly absent context it builds an atmosphere of pure cruelty with a fine charge, some from the cast and some from the situation. The actresses are surely pretty uncomfortable in their scenes and their suffering is palpable, even infectious, as the film draws on its hard not to feel a sense of genuine unhappiness for them. As performers they work well too, Karine Gambier, Susan Hemmingway, Aida Gouveia and Esther Studer were all either Franco frequent flyers or adult cinema veterans and have an easy chemistry, and not just their characters but the film itself. Franco has occasionally cast women that just don't gel with his films but here they work beautifully and the camera is equally responsive. Mostly naked with loving gaze upon breasts and bushes they bring a physical energy that almost makes up for their absent characters, radiating convincing pain during even the more daftly lurid of their tortures. Though never graphic these scenes are imaginatively mean spirited and compered with glee by a hammy yet disturbing Howard Vernon, clearly having a hoot of a time as a bad, bad man who really likes his job. Things are always watchable, but like many a film of its ilk, this one is simply too unambitious. I know I said the one dimensionality works, but it still could have taken its one dimension and made it, oh I don't know, bigger? Though nasty it never goes for truly grim where it should, though sleazy it only once takes a time out to actually be sexy. I didn't expect much and happily I got pretty much exactly what I wanted from this one but I still can't help thinking it could have pushed the boat out a bit more. There is also a sad lack of wild zooms or out of focus shots, Franco never tweaks the atmosphere the way his other work has shown he can. When it comes down to it, this isn't that memorable and its a crying shame. Still a good time 6/10 from me though, even if it has slipped my mind in a few weeks time.