Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Reform School Girls (Umbrella Entertainment) DVD Review

Collapse
X
Collapse
  •  
    Ian Jane
    Administrator

  • Reform School Girls (Umbrella Entertainment) DVD Review



    Released by: Umbrella Entertainment
    Released on: June 5th, 2019.
    Director: Tom DeSimone
    Cast: Linda Carol, Sybil Danning, Wendy O. Williams, Pat Ast, Sherri Stoner
    Year: 1986
    Purchase From Amazon

    Reform School Girls - Movie Review:

    Tom DeSimone's 1986 film, Reform School Girls, takes place in and around the Pridemore Juvenile Facility, a detention facility that winds up being the new home of pretty, young Jenny Williams (Linda Carol), a new recruit sent to the slammer for the first time when she helps her loser boyfriend on an unsuccessful robbery. Pridemore is run by Warden Sutter (Sybil Danning), a ridiculously rigid woman who does everything in her power and then some to keep her inmates in line. Her right-hand woman is Edna (Pat Ast). She's a bit of a sadist but if you're nice to her in the ways she wants, she's nice in return. Cross her and you're in trouble.

    Jenny quickly learns the ins and outs of prison life. She befriends Lisa (Sherri Stoner), another new addition to the prison's population, who isn't adjusting to life behind bars very well at all. Soon enough, these two run into and cross Charlie Chambliss (the late Plasmatics frontwoman Wendy O. Williams!), which proves to be a bad move. Charlie is, in many ways, the one who is really running the show here and when they don't abide by her sapphic rules, she turns her small army of lingerie clad ladies against them! Eventually, this being a woman-in-prison film after all, Jenny and her friends decide it's time to launch an escape plan, but of course, that won't be easy at all.

    “So young… So Bad… So What”?

    Reform School Girls is a lot of good, trashy fun. It plays as more of a send up of women-in-prison movies than a more serious entry but Simone makes sure that it gives the audience what it wants. There's lots of nudity here and plenty of sleazy action too. The weaker girls are put through the ringer by the rougher and tougher ones, and if it doesn't do much to break any new ground, it does what it does quite well. This is fast paced, trashy and plenty entertaining.

    Director Simone is known in other circles as Lancer Brooks, a prolific director of gay porn but he also worked on Chatterbox, Hell Night and Angel III before then segueing into a TV career where he directed some episodes of Freddy's Nightmares and Swamp Thing. He directs the film well, ensuring that it's never dull and that our interest is held from start to finish. He also gets some pretty good work out of his cast. Sybil Danning is underused to a noticeable degree, meaning she was probably paid more than the others, but what the movie lacks in Sybil it makes up for with crazy Pat Ast (who popped up in Andy Warhol's Heat) and, of course, the inimitable Wendy O. Williams. If Williams has trouble passing for a teenager in this one, it never matters, because she chews the scenery with so much passion that you kind of forgot about the fact that she was pushing forty when this movie was made.

    Reform School Girls - DVD Review:

    Reform School Girls looks just fine framed at 1.78.1 widescreen on this DVD. While obviously a Blu-ray would have been preferable this is a more than solid standard definition offering. Colors look good, the source used for the transfer was evidently in quite nice shape, and black levels are decent.

    The English language Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono track is also fine. Dialogue is easy to understand and follow and there are no problems with any hiss or distortion. Levels are properly balanced. There are no subtitles provided on the disc.

    There are no extras on the disc.

    Reform School Girls - The Final Word:

    Reform School Girls really is a bit of a camp trash classic. It offers up the requisite tease and sleaze and features some killer performances and an equally killer soundtrack. Umbrella's DVD release is barebones but it looks and sounds just fine, no problems here at all. In a perfect world, this'll get a special edition Blu-ray at some point but until then, with the U.S. disc long out of print, this is an easy one to recommend.





























      Posting comments is disabled.

    Latest Articles

    Collapse

    • Hot Spur (Severin Films) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Severin Films
      Released on: April 30th, 2024.
      Director: Lee Frost
      Cast: Joseph Mascolo, Virginia Goodman, John Alderman
      Year: 1969
      Purchase From Amazon

      Hot Spur – Movie Review:

      Director Lee Frost and Producer Bob Cresse's film, Hot Spur, opens in Texas in 1869 with a scene where a pair of cowboys wanders into a bar where they call over a pretty Mexican waitress and coerce her into dancing for them. She obliges, but
      ...
      03-22-2024, 11:53 AM
    • Death Squad (Mondo Macabro) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Mondo Macabro
      Released on: April 9th, 2024.
      Director: Max Pecas
      Cast: Thierry de Carbonnières, Jean-Marc Maurel, Denis Karvil, Lillemour Jonsson
      Year: 1985
      Purchase From Amazon

      Death Squad – Movie Review:

      Also known as Brigade Of Death, French sleaze auteur Max Pecas’ 1985 film, Death Squad, opens with a night time scene outside of Paris in the Bois de Boulogne Forest where cars pass by a small gang of transsexual
      ...
      03-22-2024, 11:46 AM
    • Roommates (Quality X) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Quality X
      Released on: February 28th, 2024.
      Director: Chuck Vincent
      Cast: Samantha Fox, Vernoica Hart, Kelly Nichols, Jerry Butler, Jamie Gillis
      Year: 1982
      Purchase From Amazon

      Roommates – Movie Review:

      Directed by Chuck Vincent and released in 1982, Roommates opens with a scene where a young woman named Joan Harmon (Veronica Hart) gets a hotel room with an older man named Ken (Don Peterson, credited as Phil Smith),
      ...
      03-15-2024, 01:10 PM
    • Night Of The Blood Monster (Blue Underground) UHD/Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Blue Underground
      Released on: March 26th, 2024.
      Director: Jess Franco
      Cast: Christopher Lee, Maria Rohm, Dennis Price
      Year: 1970
      Purchase From Amazon

      Night Of The Blood Monster – Movie Review:

      Directed by Jess Franco, The Bloody Judge (or, Night Of The Blood Monster, as it is going by on this new release from Blue Underground) isn't quite the salacious exercise in Eurotrash you might expect it to be, and while it
      ...
      03-15-2024, 01:07 PM
    • Phase IV (Vinegar Syndrome) UHD/Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
      Released on: March 26th, 2024.
      Director: Saul Bass
      Cast: Nigel Davenport, Michael Murphy, Lynne Frederick, Alan Gifford, Robert Henderson, Helen Horton
      Year: 1974
      Purchase From Amazon

      Phase IV – Movie Review:

      Saul Bass’ 1974 sci-fi/thriller Phase IV is an interesting blend of nature run amuck stereotypes and Natural Geographic style nature footage mixed into one delicious cocktail of suspense and
      ...
      03-15-2024, 01:02 PM
    • The Bounty Hunter Trilogy (Radiance Films) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Radiance Films
      Released on: March 26th, 2024.
      Director: Shigehiro Ozawa, Eiichi Kudo
      Cast: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Minoru Ôki, Arashi Kanjuro, Bin Amatsu, Chiezo Kataoka
      Year: 1969-1972
      Purchase From Amazon

      The Bounty Hunter Trilogy – Movie Review:

      Radiance Films gathers together the three films in Toie Studios’ Bounty Hunter Trilogy, starring the inimitable Tomisaburo Wakayama. Here’s how the three movies in this
      ...
      03-13-2024, 11:30 AM
    Working...
    X