4/10
Sadistic and sleaze Women-in-prison movie from prolific Spanish filmmaker Jesús Franco or ¨Uncle Jess¨
23 June 2022
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 .
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