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PRISON-A-GO-GO An instant cult classic! Scantily clad female inmates behind bars! Flesh-eating mutant zombies! Rebellious violent ninjas! Porcupine monster girl! Killer snake! Sudsy boobies! Abnormal borscht consumption! Director Barak Epstein goes way over the top in this campy send up off of “women in prison” movies. Life in prison involves the inmates planting flowers (watch out for that mud, ladies, you might fall in it and have to wrestle!) or taking the prerequisite prison film shower. Prison-A-Go-Go contains so many shower scenes that Barak includes an animated clock in the lower right side of the screen to count down the minutes/seconds from one revealing shower till the next. Boob connoisseurs may be disappointed the main actresses stay covered for the most part but some tattooed (though small chested) extras give the film its fill of tits. The plot concerns Janie (Laurie Walton), a flatulent, somewhat dim veterinarian whose sister Calista gets kidnapped by a mad scientist, as sisters tend to do. Following the only clue that Calista may be held in a prison, Janie gets herself arrested and sent to a lowly penitentiary in the Philippines. In prison, Janie hooks up with a loveable crew of criminals including Jackpot (Rhonda Shear, host of the USA cable insomniac show Up All Night and this film’s executive producer); Breezy, who “delivers” contraband out of her ass; Cross-eye, who displays all the symptoms of Tourette’s and who has a pet porcupine named Leroy; and Boom-Boom, who’s addicted to Freon. Together, these ladies learn the way of the ninja and devise a plan to rescue Janie’s sister while escaping from the coffee drinking, slacker warden Wilbur (Mike Wiebe). The prison genre’s obligatory, evil female warden is played all-too-briefly by cult goddess Mary Woronov. Despite star billing, Woronov is only in the first 15 minutes of the film but her presence is delicious. Playing Warden Dyanne She-Bitch Slut Face much like Principal Togar in Rock & Roll High School, Woronov crackles menacingly and bemoans a misplaced shipment of cattle prods while cruelly branding a girl’s backside. While much of Prison-A-Go-Go is outrageous in its humor, Woronov brings a real evil to the screen. Too bad there’s not more of her. Shear is good. Her Jackpot has some funny lines including how she shops for pants out of Breezy’s ass. Jackpot has proudly raped 78 prison guards for favors and has the luxury of drinking cocktails in her cell. She showers suggestively with a rubber duck. Epstein seems to look for reasons to cover girls with soap, mud or food. In a surreal moment, a Marilyn Manson type band called Mamie Bundy plays “I Like To Do Drugs” for the inmates in the cafeteria while both a food fight and ninja attack take place. The climax of girls and zombies running around during a prison break is equally so silly it’s great in a Benny Hill kind of way. Prison-A-Go-Go often falls
into Ed Woodian hands in terms of sets and continuity: the mad scientist’s
lab is another set curtained off, Leroy the porcupine appears safe in
the cafeteria after he is kidnapped, and the special effects are obviously
cheap but cute. Still, the film has its tongue firmly in cheek and its
heart in the right place as homage to the prison greats like Black Mama
White Mama. The gore is good too; lots of spurting blood. Bonus points
go to the excellent go-go graphics in the opening title sequence. Check
it out for a smile. -Zzilly Gutbuckets (aka Lizz Fisher)
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