Maybe the golden years of sleazy & campy "Women in Prison" were long history by then already; maybe it didn't get properly promoted or announced in trailers (like "Reform School Girls", for example) or maybe it's just not good enough to compete with other & more successful films with a similar theme, but "Hell Hole" is a totally anonymous & overlooked 80's exploitation flick that only a handful of genre fanatics have heard of. The obscure status of this film honestly surprises me, as it has a fairly interesting cast (including Ray Sharkey, Judy Landers, Mary "Eating Raoul" Woronov and even Robert "Maniac Cop" Z'Dar) and a plot outline that certainly appeals to fans of rancid exploitation. Landers stars as a twenty-something and supposedly sexy young woman who witnesses her mother getting killed by cheesy and unconvincing killer Sharkey, because he's looking for "papers" that apparently are very important to him as well as to the people who hired him to kill the woman and to get rid of any other possible witnesses. Just what exactly are these papers? Damned if I know
Throughout the entire movie, the value and importance of these papers is continuously emphasized, yet not one character ever reveals anything about their content. Anyway, Sharkey fails to get rid of Landers properly, but instead she falls down a construction site and suffers from amnesia. She's brought to a sanatorium where a she faces a whole new series of issues, like sadistic wardens, lesbian and power-mad inmates and of course the female head doctor who submits patients to grotesque lobotomy experiments. If all that isn't enough, Sharkey shows up in the clinic as well (as a fake doctor) and uses his charms on other patients to get rid of Susan. "Hollhole" is a crazy, incompetent and overall ridiculous film. The screenplay doesn't make any sense and seriously lacks coherence as well as basic logic. There seem to be very few wardens and security personnel in the clinic. Most of the time, the patients who are supposed to be dangerous and severely unstable are left completely unsupervised and whenever a riot or cat-fight breaks out, it literally takes several minutes before someone in a white coat shows up. Dr. Fletcher's experiments in the basement of the asylum are quite stupid & pointless, and don't expect to see much gore or sadistic images here, neither. Admittedly there's a fair amount of sleaze and female nudity to enjoy in "Hellhole", but the same girls exclusively provide it over and over again. In case you're hoping to catch a glimpse at Judy Landers voluptuous curves, don't hold your breath
Apparently, her contracted stated that she could keep a robe on at all times. The last half hour of this movie is indescribably retarded and boring at the same time, which certainly isn't the best combination. It's fun to watch Robert Z'Dar playing a crazed sanatorium warden, but he as well as Mary Woronov are given way too few screen time. Only recommended in case you're really, really bored
. Or in case you feel the urge to check out every single variant of Women in Prison movies that ever got released.
