Review of Barbed Wire Dolls (1976) by Budge B — 13 Apr 2009

This is typical Jess Franco fare, with so many of his hallmark themes. On some Caribbean island stands a bleak fortress, patrolled by gun-wielding female guards whose uniforms seem to keep coming undone. Inside we are alerted by the screams of a young woman, naked, chained at the throat, being tormented by a sadistic male officer. Your suspension of disbelief is put on immediate hold by the dreadful acting and disembodied dubbing.

The plot? Well, the new girl to the prison has earned the enmity of the sadistic female warden (who parades around wearing a monocle and little else). Some of the prisoners decide to escape - strangely, nobody else seems to have thought about this until the new girl, trouble-maker that she is, arrives. Escape proves no more troublesome than fighting your way through shrubbery - which may, of course, take on a whole new dimension when you're naked. There's talk about the revolutionists! It ends. Abruptly!

Women in prison, women in bondage, women being dominated by other women are all Franco themes. While, in some of his films, the camera work and lighting are excellent, here he does the shooting himself, often using a hand-held camera. The results are some blurred and badly lit shots which Franco tries to pass off as art (the extras on the DVD feature a short interview with him).

It's classic Franco, but hardly classic cinema. Soft-porn, funny in places, but probably not something you'd want to watch twice.