Director - Paul Nicholas

Coming 9 years after Linda Blair's "serious" preteen girls in prison flick, Born Innocent (made a year after The Exorcist), Chained Heat is as much of a departure as you can get within the same genre, yet considering the star, amusingly ironic. My eyes had already started to gloss over by the time the opening credits were done.

A whimpering Carol, (Blair) is sentenced to 18 months in prison for an accidental vehicular homicide. In the holding cell she makes friends with a returnee, they chat about soap-operas, and witness the brutal, violent "outing" of a transvestite. Now that she's getting her first taste of lockdown, a simple and childlike Linda Blair is crying, equal amounts "prison is scary" and "where did my career go".

The Warden (veteran John Vernon) meanwhile is hanging out in his hottub getting drunk, screwing the hottest girls in the prison, taping it for his porn collection, and using the girls as inside dealers for his heroin. This one in particular he's gotten hooked on heroin so she'll snitch for her fix. If that string of eye-popping debauchery didn't wake you up, her brutal murder by fellow inmates, led by Sybil Danning, will make you stand at attention.

Put to solving this inconvenient murder is Chief guard, Capitan Taylor, something of a confusing mix of genre convention and departure herself. Then there's her greasy-to-the-gills lover, Les (Harry Silva), who's purpose is to be as sleazy as possible and screw everybody by the end of the movie; not wasting any time, he's seeing Ericka (Danning) on the side, along with - and also behind the backs of the Warden and Taylor - having a hand in the heroin market.

Here follows a period of hazy and confusing plot development in which the authorities conspire to dig themselves in deeper. Blair is repeatedly menaced in the showers by Danning, but sadly, the "stars" leave a rather bitter taste, and it's up to the supporting cast to make this watchable

In any case, now that Carol has gone through the forge of routine prison brutality and emerged a confident strong-willed do-gooder inmate, she's able to spearhead a mildly redeeming ironic ending in which the inmates pull one over on the authorities.

Surprise-ploitation, it's happily, remarkably, and equally confusing to find both lack, and luster in one convenient package.

email Seth