FAQ

Ex soldier John Brennick is arrested when he is caught by immigration officers trying to cross the border to Mexico which his pregnant wife Karen flees and is tried and found guilty and sentenced to 31 years imprisonment for having another baby. Brennick is transported to the Fortress, an underground prison which no convict ever escaped. In the prison, the convicts are monitored by a computer with artificial intelligence called Zed and they are implanted with devices called Intestinators which inflicts pain and kills if the prisoners misbehave and fail to follow the rules. After getting into a fight with the brutal Maddox, Brennick is brought before the prison's governor Director Poe and learns Karen was apprehended and brought to the Fortress. After Maddox ambushes Brennick which they engage in a bloody fistfight, Brennick has his mind wiped when he disobeys a direct order from Poe to kill Maddox. Months later, Brennick's mind is restored and Brennick and his cellmates start planning their escape from the Fortress and rescue Karen whom unwillingly has become Poe's companion and they remove their Intestinators and Brennick and his cellmate put their plan into motion.

Here the situation is a bit complicated. In the States, only an R-Rated version was released, that, in the first place, cuts out two additional violent scenes. In Europe a slightly longer cut was released that still misses out these two violent scenes but features four slightly longer story scenes. Only in the UK, released on VHS and LD, the complete version of Fortress: the four story pieces + the two violent scenes, is available.