Hellhole Women
(1981)
|
|
| 0Share... |
Hellhole Women
(1981)
|
|
| 0Share... |
| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
|
|
Ajita Wilson | ... |
Magda Hurtado /
Man Having Sex with Lucas
|
|
|
Andrea Guzon | ... |
Mercedes Llorens 'Coñito'
(as Andrea Guzzon)
|
|
|
Ursula Buchfellner | ... |
Tara Lindberg
(as Ursula Fellner)
|
| Antonio Mayans | ... |
Governor Mendoza
(as Robert Foster)
|
|
|
|
Uta Koepke | ... |
Olga Kowalski
|
|
|
Ángel Caballero | ... |
Michael Gordon
|
|
|
Gina Janssen | ... |
Loba Mendoza
(as Gina Jansen)
|
|
|
Otto Retzer | ... |
Mario
|
|
|
Tania Sandoval | ... |
Miriam
|
|
|
Diana Capdevila | ... |
Head wardess
|
| Jesús Franco | ... |
Lucas
|
|
|
|
Consuelo Tejera |
|
|
|
|
María del Carmen González |
|
|
|
|
Patricia Quow | ... |
Juna
|
|
|
María Encarna Tejera |
|
|
I can't help thinking that this is Franco's 'hamage' to the Marquis de Sade's "One Thousand Days of Sodom". People (in this case women) abducted to serve as slaves to a privileged elite? Check. Kinky sex? Check. Torture including whipping? Check. Victims chosen at random to be killed? Check.
Thank goodness Franco didn't go the whole hog and introduce cinema audiences to the delights of coprology (and indeed coprophagy), another perversion that crops up repeatedly in de Sade's tediously long and disgusting saga.
I rather hoped that this film would fall into the 'so bad it's good' category. But even the acres of naked flesh and numerous sexual encounters didn't make up for the dismal dialogue, dreadful acting, elusive plot and - just to put the tin hat on it - dubbing AND English sub-titles (a belt and braces approach missing from the women's costumes). The Alsation gave a very professional performance though.
Of course I could be wrong about the de Sade angle. After all, I failed to realise that the actor playing the head warden at the 'prison' was a trans-sexual. I must pay more attention to the size of people's hands in future.
According to another reviewer, the film was banned in the UK. Well it clearly isn't any more, though I fancy that the nipple-needling scene was cut to satisfy the censors. On the DVD I watched, it was only clearly visible on the Spanish trailer (which, in case you're wondering, I watched to compare it with the English one).
The DVD also features an interview with Jess Franco, though you'll need better Spanish than mine to understand it. Unless I'm much mistaken it's neither dubbed nor sub-titled. And it points out that the person sodomising the character played by Franco is Ajita Wilson disguised using a moustache. Kind of ironic, given that (s)he had had the requisite appendage surgically removed.