Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

Well that’s a little more like it. I haven’t seen an awful lot of these exploitative Women in Prison flicks that are the crown jewel of exploitation films but the one’s I have seen have been somewhat underwhelming. I’m not quite sure what I expected from them but Jonathan Demme’s ‘Caged Heat’ didn’t do it for me and ‘Emanuelle in Prison’, a movie that sounded like it was going to be exploitation heaven, was like the most normal Emanuelle movie ever. Then I stumble across this little Italian gem from director Michele Tarantini ‘Women in Fury’ which I think is pretty much what I would imagine what a ‘Women in Prison movie’ was supposed to be. I’d even go so far as to call it ‘the prototype’.

The movie starts with a brief narration informing us that this is a true story and that it will ‘shock’ you but also inform you of some rather horrible things that are happening in certain parts of the world. It’s almost as if the distributors want us to think that they are performing some kind of community service. BWAHAHAHAHA!!!! Anyway Suzane Caravahlo assumes the role of Angela Duvall and you don’t have to look at the absolutely lovely Ms. Caravahlo too long to understand why she got the lead in this movie, and it’s not because of her ability to act or her skills in transferring the sociological aspects in being a woman trapped in a Brazilian penitentiary. In a sensational case Angela was convicted of murdering an infamous drug dealer, a crime she confessed to, and shipped off the worst prison that Brazil has to offer. Angela is not in prison for more than three minutes before she has gotten the attention of every woman in the joint, especially the prison matron who has deemed to make the sweet, soft and demure Angela her new main love squeeze.

Forced lesbianism however is the least of Angela’s problems in this joint, though we do admit Angela seemed to get over the ‘forced’ aspects of lesbian sex with the matron pretty damn quickly. For one thing the matrons former main squeeze is none too

happy being relegated to second string claiming ‘I’m built better than you are!’… and she just might be right about that. Angela’s cellmates have been hating on her from the word go, treating her to an introductory flogging and molestation initiation and Captain Bonaficio, the superintendent at this prison, apparently worked for this slain drug dealer and has decided to see to it that Angela dies in bondage.

The only thing Angela has in her favor is a 300 pound man-beast of a woman named Denise who has it made it VERY CLEAR that Angela is not to be messed with. That woman we mentioned earlier who claimed she’s built better than Angela really should’ve heeded that call. Angela also has Dr. Cuna, who is the prison medic on her side who sees that something is up with the whole situation in this prison. He even manages to figure out that Angela is innocent of the crime and only confessed to save her drug addicted brother.

Then comes the prison break and all hell breaks loose. It’s Black Steel in the hour of Chaos, because we have 8 bitches on the run. Dr. Cuna wants to find them so he can set Angela free, Captain Bonaficio wants to find them so he can kill them all, especially Angela, and these eight women have to find some way to survive each other during this escape in the jungles of Brazil, without nary a brassiere in sight.

Now we can’t go so far as to call ‘Women in Fury’ a good movie and it probably does spend to much time watching Dr. Cuna run around the streets of Brazil doing his ‘Baretta’ thing but if you are looking for a movie that exploits women totally and completely then I’m thinking you don’t have too look too far past this one. Naturally there’s nudity galore, with a lot of it the full frontal variety featuring cup sizes ranging from small A’s to heavy double D’s, women spend a lot of time in water be it getting hosed down for previous indiscretions, taking dips in lakes, having cat fights in lakes or avoiding poisonous snakes in lakes. Of course we have our prerequisite girl on girl love, replete with a 36" phallic billyclub, a little traditional rape, though this was disturbingly glossed over and lots and lots of shootouts.

Yes the movie was totally ridiculous, the English dub in this thing was one of the worst dubs ever, though I doubt hearing the actors speak in their natural voices would’ve helped all that much and it was awesome watching four half naked women with three guns and no extra ammo decimate the entire Brazilian defense force. But it was all crafted in such a spectacular sleazy manner that it’s almost impossible to resist… if you like that kind of thing… which I’m not saying I do… but you might.

If you are a connoisseur of this kind of thing then ‘Women in Fury’ needs to be right up there near the top of you bad movie – women in prison collection. Not as classic as say the Pam Grier / Margaret Markov slice of insanity ‘Naked Warriors’ but still a stone trip if ever there was one.