"Chained Heat II" review

Chained Heat II (1993)

Director: Lloyd A. Simandl
Writer: Chris Hyde

Brigitte Nielsen ... Magda Kassar
Paul Koslo ... Franklin Goff
Kimberley Kates ... Alex Morrison
Kari Whitman ... Suzanne Morrison
Jana Svandová ... Rosa Schmidt
Marek Vasut ... Stefan Lotsky
Lucie Benesová ... Tina Lukof (as Lucie Benes)
Markéta Hrubesová ... Carla

An innocent girl has been thrown into prison. She is a sweet, virginal girl who has been framed for drug smuggling. They send her to the toughest woman's prison movie set they can find. She arrives at warden Brigitte Nielsen's private dungeon. Warden Nielsen likes to run a nice and sleazy prison. The girls are used and abused on a regular basis. Since there's money to be made in prostitution and pornography, why shouldn't Brigitte get a taste? She whores the girls out to the highest bidder and gets to taste the merchandise when the mood strikes her. She's in the mood a lot. There's another story going on about the innocent victim's sister trying to get the evidence she needs to free her but since it doesn't involve S&M chains and prisoner exploitation, it's not as interesting. It all ends in an orgy of violence as the girls strike back at warden Brigitte's excessive debauchery.

"Chained Heat II" is an acceptable entry in the mightiest of all exploitation genres, the woman's prison movie. There isn't a better vehicle to showcase excessive female nudity and wanton violence then shoving the cast onto a cheap set, making them wear tattered rags, (although all of these prisoners wear green short skirts), and letting the ladies run wild through the prison. All of the usual scenes are here. The shower scene, the random nudity scenes, the random violent scenes and random scenes of the corrupt warden indulging in various debased sexual acts. These random scenes somehow coalesce into a movie that is fairly painless to sit through.

The most important character in a woman's prison movie is the warden. Brigitte Nielson is the amazon warrior who runs the prison and she does a fine job. She likes to be submissive to her homicidal sidekick, Rosa. Rosa hates all living things and delights in causing the inmates as much anguish as she can. But the main character in a woman's prison flick is almost always a nice, sweet girl who will have to toughen up to survive. The poor, innocent girl needs to find an understanding friend who will comfort her in her darkest hour. And by comfort her, I mean that they need to have hot sweaty sex on the cell room floor. This genre is set in stone and any deviations will not be tolerated.

Unfortunately, this is where "Chained Heat II" falters. While there are some decent exploitation scenes to enjoy, the filmmakers fail to follow the two most basic woman's prison movie rules. The first one clearly states that there will be some sort of lesbian activity behind bars. The girls need to find a release for their pain and their cell mates should be there to help. When I saw the innocent girl and her friend end up in solitary confinement together, I was sure the filmmakers had set this scene up for the eventual Sapphic payoff. I was wrong. Instead, we are treated to a scene of the ladies talking and the nice girl giving her friend a necklace to remember her. I was shocked at the lack of exploitation in that scene but felt the movie would bounce back with Warden Nielsen.

I was wrong again. The second woman's prison rule this movie violates is failing to let their star get naked. Warden Nielsen does not have any nude scenes. For shame. Although she does have some interesting scenes playing a submissive to various dominating women, it doesn't make up for the lack of Brigitte in this film. I had dreams of Brigitte towering over some prisoners in the shower as she makes them wash her back. But my dreams went down the drain.

"Chained Heat II" is for the undiscriminating woman's prison lover. It doesn't provide all of the necessary thrills associated with the genre but it does manage to be mildly entertaining in its own sordid way. I would have liked to have seen a little more Brigitte stalking the prison halls but you can't have everything. It's worth a look if you're in need of a WIP fix. If not, it can be skipped.

SCORE: 2.5 out of 4 Brigitte's in chains