Women in Cellblock 9 (1978)

Women in Cellblock 9 (Frauen für Zellenblock 9) is a 1978 Jess Franco women-in-prison movie so you pretty much know what to expect. Franco made a ton of these movies. He could churn them out very quickly more or less on autopilot and there was a ready market for them. This one follows the established formula fairly closely. It was made by Elite Films and produced by Erwin C. Dietrich, a name very familiar indeed to fans of eurocult cinema.

Rebels are trying to smuggle six women into an unnamed South American country. The women are hidden in a truck but they encounter a military check point and the women are discovered. Three of the women, identified as guilt of subversive acts, end up in the prison (in Cellblock 9) run by Loba (Dora Doll). Loba’s assistant and torturer-in-chief is Dr Milton Costa (Howard Vernon). Loba and Dr Costa are apparently lovers although Loba has a liking for women.

The three women are joined by a fourth woman, Maria. They are tortured. Karin (Karine Gambier) breaks under the torture. It’s a particularly fiendish torture which would make any woman break. The women plan an escape. Their plan relies on a ruse which always works in women-in-prison movies. The four of them are chained up naked but they pretend to be pleasuring each other which drives their guard wild with lust. When he tries to join in their game they overcome him.

This happens fairly on so the bulk of the movie is actually a pursuit through the jungle movie, with four naked women being hunted by soldiers led by Loba and Dr Costa.

The torture scenes aren’t as graphic as you’d expect. It’s the idea of what is happening to the girls that is shocking rather than what’s actually shown. It still got banned in Britain and is still banned.

There’s a stupendous amount of female frontal nudity. The lead actresses keep their clothes on for the first five minutes. After that they’re totally nude for the rest of the film. If seeing naked women running through the jungle is your thing you’ll have fun with this one.

Oddly enough there’s very little sex. Mostly the girls just run about without their clothes on.

Karine Gambier gave a memorable performance as the sexy but corrupt warden in Erwin C. Dietrich’s Women of Inferno Island (one of the more interesting and clever 70s women-in-prison movies). This time she’s the heroine. Apart from being a striking beauty she was a competent actress, certainly more than good enough to handle a role such as this.

Howard Vernon resists the temptation to chew the scenery. He plays Dr Costa as a man who is evil and insane but in a disturbingly quiet manner, with the madness constantly bubbling away beneath the surface. He’s seriously creepy. Dora Doll as Loba the sadistic lesbian warden (yes of course there’s a sadistic lesbian warden) adopts a similar approach. She’s quietly chilling. It’s a very effective performance. The other actresses are adequate enough and since the actresses playing the prisoners are in their birthday suits for the whole movie I imagine that audiences wouldn’t have been concentrating on their acting skills.

Franco keeps it simple stylistically. He’s not trying to be surreal or to capture a dream-like atmosphere as he would be doing in his more personal projects. Mostly he just relies on the locations (and the nude women) to keep the viewer interested and the location shooting (it was filmed in Portugal) really is quite impressive. There are no zooms. It’s shot in a surprisingly straightforward manner.

The women confined in Cellblock 9 are political prisoners so you might think this is going to be a political film but it isn’t. The ruling regime which Loba and Dr Costa serve is clearly nasty but we are never told if it’s a left-wing or a right-wing regime. We never find out if the rebels are left-wing or right-wing. There are no political speeches. Karin is actually involved with the rebels but she never utters a word about politics. Franco intensely disliked political films. To the extent that there is anything vaguely political in this movie it simply has (like Franco) an anti-authoritarian tone.

Franco disliked gore and there’s none in this movie. There’s virtually no blood. Apart from a couple of scenes of torture that are pretty horrifying it’s a movie that relies on remorseless building an atmosphere of cruelty and despair.

Full Moon’s DVD release looks sensational. I very much doubt whether this movie would look any better on Blu-Ray, that’s how good the DVD is. Extras include a lengthy audio interview with Franco, apparently dating from the late 70s. Franco doesn’t mention Women in Cellblock 9 at all, he talks about horror movie and offers some strong opinions on horror cinema. He expresses his distaste for Paul Naschy’s films, his strong dislike of Hammer films (he admits that Terence Fisher was a skilled technician but finds him cold). He also expresses his extreme admiration for Roger Corman and especially for Corman’s Poe films.

Women in Cellblock 9 is not a great movie of its type. Unless you’re a dedicated Francophile and you’ve seen all his notable movies or you’re totally obsessed with women-in-prison movies there’s probably no pressing reason to see this one. It’s very definitely a lesser Franco film.