Of the multitude of directors who dipped their toes into the sleazy pool of women-in-prison flicks, Bruno Mattei is hard to top in terms of extremely nasty genre entries. Only Jess Franco made more nauseating examples of the jailed women category, but Mattei's were goofier and more outrageous in the long run. His two most popular remain BLADE VIOLENT and VIOLENCE IN A WOMENS' PRISON, shot back-to-back with much of the same cast between them. How to tell them apart? Indonesian sex goddess Laura Gemser does nudity in VIOLENCE, but not in BLADE. BLADE was released under many different titles, including EMANUELLE IN PRISON and WOMENS' PRISON MASSACRE in the U.S. Finally released to the Region 1 digital format is WOMENS' PRISON MASSACRE, aka BLADE VIOLENT, for fans of this compulsive cult item to enjoy. However, it has its shortcomings which makes this for completists only

Laura Gemser plays (surprise) Emanuelle, a nosy reporter who has drugs planted on her by a powerful politician and is sent to prison to rot. There, she is attacked on both sides by vicious prisoner Albina and the snooty warden who overlooks the violence which goes on right in front of her. However, her life in hell will get even worse when a gang of hardened male criminals on their way to Death Row hijack their police truck escort and burst into the prison, holding hostages and making demands. But the women won't take this laying down (well...some of them will) and try to stop the madmen before they all end up dead!

The opening stage show is definitely influenced by CAGED HEAT!, Jonathan Demme's ultimate WIP film, but the rest of WOMENS' PRISON MASSACRE is so depraved, so warped, and so very...well...ITALIAN that it's 100% entertainment all the way. It's the perfect double-feature with its companion piece VIOLENCE IN A WOMENS' PRISON (already on DVD from Shriek Show, with liners from yours truly). The synthesizer score is awesome, much like VIOLENCE, and the entire cast seems game to wallow in any muck that Mattei throws their way. Whoever wrote this sordid masterpiece must have had his pulse on what made every pervert in Italian grindhouses tick. You get a lesbian shower scene, vicious guards trying to drown the heroine, a switchblade fight for the guards' amusement, a razorblade hidden in a vagina to slice a man's penis in half (!), a gory Russian roulette game, and an equally graphic shoot-'em-up finale outside the prison! This is non-stop Eurosleaze at its finest and warrants the highest recommendation possible!

How Laura Gemser did nudity in VIOLENCE and not this one is a complete mystery, but she is someone who's usually thought of as merely a sex symbol. Her real-life husband, Gabriele Tinti, played a kindly doctor in VIOLENCE but really chews scenery here as Crazy Boy, the ringleader of the male criminals who rapes Emanuelle and forces her to perform Russian Roulette. Gemser is gorgeous both in and out of clothes and is a classy presence in both films, actually delivering quite competent performances for disastrous results! Anyone who sees this film will no doubt fall in love with the character "Albina," the most outrageous, campy bitch prisoner of any WIP flick ever made, played with reckless abandon by Ursula Flores! Dubbed in typical over-the-top fashion by popular dubbing artist Carolyn de Fonseca, this wide-eyed harlot speaks with perpetually clenched teeth, hides her ugly hair under a straw-like wig, and spouts so much crazy dialogue it will take more than one sitting to digest it all! Some gems: "Take my advice and die!", "I'll put a stop to your arrogance, your haughty hotten tart!", "I hate you! I hate you! You bastard! I'll kill ya!". But Albina isn't the only one with juicy dialogue. One guard screams "Stop it! Haven't you had enough violence?!" and a prisoner warns Albina, "I'd like to bite your nipples off...and I'LL DO IT!". Doe-eyed beauty Lorraine de Selle has little to do as the warden and at this point in her career had pretty much been relegated to the trashiest films she would ever make. A shame, really, as she was such a promising performer in her earlier films of the 1970s. She seems very oppressed with a tight bun and a confining uniform, but does her best with a throwaway part. I wouldn't be surprised if most of her scenes were shot for VIOLENCE IN A WOMENS' PRISON but thrown into this instead. Bearded Carlo De Mejo (CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD, Mattei's THE OTHER HELL) is the head of the policemen escorting the goons to prison, but is wounded during most of the film and only really comes alive for the finish. Also present in both this film and VIOLENCE IN A WOMENS PRISON are Franca Stoppi, Francoise Perrot, Maria Romano, Antonella Giacomini, all pretty much playing the same parts (except Francoise Perrot is a guard here, and a prisoner in VIOLENCE).

Culled from the only remaining 35mm print in the United States, Retro Shock-O-Rama's disc looks very good. A fair amount of dirt, grain and debris appears throughout the presentation, but colors look for the most part very good and it's bright and clear enough to appreciate that there is some great lighting and camerawork on display here. In several scenes it looks like a negative transfer, with really beautiful skin tones and deep blacks. The English audio is one of the funniest dub tracks in all of Italian cinema and is just fine. Extras are limited to trailers for contemporary Retro Shock-O-Rama flicks and well-done liner notes by 42nd Street Pete. Of the trailers, fans of trash cinema should enjoy: PRISON A GO GO, a WIP spoof starring Mary Woronov as the warden and Lloyd Kaufman as a guard (their meeting of the minds on Troma's SUGAR COOKIES disc was kinda embarrassing, though); BITE ME!, with a popular strip joint plagued by giant spiders and Misty Mundae as a stripper who goes commando on the little critters; THE SCREAMING DEAD, a semi-remake of BLOODY PIT OF HORROR with extra skin and some haunted house shenanigans; SUBURBAN NIGHTMARE looks like a very sick black comedy about a married couple who like killing people, but when their marriage falls apart, they try to kill each other! Icky...but kinda funny...; SINFUL WIVES, with Misty Mundae as a young woman who kills pregnant women because she can't have a baby; and CHANTAL, a disturbing story of Misty Mundae as a young smalltown girl who goes crazy trying to become a big star. However, LUST FOR DRACULA is just too pornographic for my tastes.

The good news: WOMENS' PRISON MASSACRE finally hits DVD in the U.S.! Now the sorta bad news: there are two versions available on the market. Released earlier in the year, the R-rated version came first and was unfortunately extensive cut for its American release in 1983. Here is a partial list of the missing material: a short piece of the lesbian shower scene; the head-dunking scene following the dykesploitation shower scene is abbreviated; the razor-blade sawing of Franca Stoppi's neck is completely gone; the penis-slicing sex scene has been slightly cut; Ursula Flores' fate, with bloody grue splattering into the face and mouth of Gabriele Tinti, has been entirely removed, as well as Tinti's bloody scream of "You slut!" afterwards; the bullet-flying head-splitting blood-spurting stand-off outside the prison near the climax has been very badly censored, even cutting out the fate of TWO of the main characters; Tinti plugging his policeman driver full of lead and through the car door before escaping from a broken-down cop car; and the entire sequence where Laura Gemser is told by Carlo De Mejo she won't be in prison much longer is completely cut out! Now all we see is Emanuelle walking back to her cell after being locked up again! Strangely, near the climax, there is a flashback by Carlo De Mejo after he tells Gabriele Tinti "Now you and I are equally matched with each other," with clips of the previous 80 minutes randomly cut together and inserted before De Mejo punches Tinti out (including some clips which were previously censored!). This version's missing about three and a half minutes, basically almost all of the gore.

Now don’t despair, Eurosleaze hounds, because soon after the release of this cut version, Grindhouse Releasing’s David Szulkin and Bob Murawski stepped forward with an uncut print of the film, with all the missing violence, sex, nudity and sadism listed above included. The Unrated Edition is easy to spot, as it has the words “Unrated Edition!” emblazoned across the front of the disc and the spine says “Unrated!” The film is still missing the coda with Carlo De Mejo telling Laura Gemser she will be out of prison soon, but perhaps this was never included in the export version. This uncut disc doesn’t feature the massive trailer vault of the R-rated disc, but does feature trailers for the 80s gore extravaganza SLIME CITY (review coming soon) and CRIMINALLY INSANE/SATAN’S BLACK WEDDING. The best uncut version previously available came from Vipco (of all companies!) under the title EMANUELLE IN PRISON culled from what looks like original vault materials and is quite beautiful. Fans should hold onto that one for the complete ending to the film, but this is an excellent companion to that disc and for the low price tag, it’s a no-brainer to pick up this filthy gem of Italian exploitation. (Casey Scott)

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