Non-Horror Exploitation: Sadomania - Hölle der Lust (A.K.A. Hellhole Women) (1981)

This is the first movie I've seen of Euro-trash legend Jesús Franco, who (in his better days) released about 7 movies a year. I'm not too familiar with his work yet but I do believe I heard somewhere that it was not uncommon for him to shoot 2 or 3 movies at the same time with the same cast, crew, equipment and locations.

The captives in a women's prison have to suffer daily punishment from their evil (transsexual) warden ''Magda Hurtado''. 

Yup, that's about the only plot you'll get. I think I expected a more brutal women in prison movie. It's actually quite tame. It's also nowhere near a horror movie. There is however an insane amount of nudity. Both guards and captives walk around in hotpants and bare breasts. After 38 minutes there is a scene where no nudity is shown for about 30 to 40 seconds. This record is not broken throughout the movie. Every now and then the close-ups are so detailed I really wondered what's the line between soft and hardcore. Certain stills of the warden could have easily been printed in a biology book: Chapter ''female genitalia''. What's also noticeable is the fact that every single character in this movie is so horny they are basically willing to have sex with anyone. They don't care whether that person has just tried to kill them or whether the person is dying. THEY MUST HAVE SEX!

For someone who is known to have produced so much trash in his career I was quite surprised by the great camerawork in this one. Franco and his cameracrew certainly know how to create some beautiful looking pictures. The setting, somewhere near the south of Spain, is absolutely stunning as well. But as great as the camerawork is, the choreography of fight scenes is absolutely terrible. Due to the clumsy way they are done, the little bit of action we are shown looks utterly ridiculous. The same goes for the scene with a plastic crocodile, which could have been a legendary scene but in stead is fucked up by ignorant filmmaking.

Even though the movie's running time is fairly long (about 103 minutes) it never gets boring (I wonder why.....). Near the end we get an amazing cameo of Jesús Franco himself as a gay brothel owner. Also the ending (SPOILER), in which the evil warden is forced to walk into the swamp where crocodiles are waiting to chew her to pieces, looks absolutely brilliant. 

Not a terrible movie to begin my Jesús Franco journey with it seems. He might go a little too overboard in terms of nudity, but since the original script couldn't have been more than five pages I don't blame him. Sadomania is an entertaining movie that could have used a bit more action and violence though.

Fun Fact (Source: IMDB)
In the scene where Lucas is seen having sex with a young man, the role of the young man is actually played by lead actress Ajita Wilson, minus her wig and wearing a fake mustache.