Watch Reform School Girls For Free

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

A mildly scuzzy women-in-prison movie of the 1980s, REFORM SCHOOL GIRLS is far too cheesy to be a successful movie. It was somehow posited as a spoof of the then-popular movie, but the laughs are in short supply unless you find terrible overacting amusing. The story is the usual mix of prison flick cliches, rivalry, gang culture, exploitative shower scenes, and cruelty. Sybil Danning has a small role as the warden but the cast is mostly unknown. It does get unpleasant at times - that branding scene! - but overall it feels remarkably light and insubstantial, with a real lack of characterisation making it hard to care about what happens to any of the cast. Wendy O. Williams steals all her scenes as the resident psycho.

Set in a correctional facility for young female offenders, Reform School Girls is technically a Women in Prison movie, but don't expect anything too sleazy ala the films of Jess Franco—as far as the genre goes, this mid 80s effort from seasoned trash director Tom DeSimone is one of the lighter examples, designed to be fun rather than offensive.While it does deliver most of the standard WIP ingredients—cat-fights, communal shower scenes, bull dykes, fragile first-timers, and physical abuse—it's all done in knowingly camp fashion with tongue firmly in cheek. The big-breasted women saunter round their dorm in sexy lingerie, the nastier inmates and members of staff are grotesque caricatures, the dialogue is deliberately tasteless ('I thought I smelled fish'), and the plot is about as cheesy as it could get.Let's face it, any film which sees a scantily clad Wendy O. Williams, lead singer of punk/rock group The Plasmatics, stood atop a speeding bus on a collision course with a sadistic, overweight, shotgun toting head matron called Edna (a memorable performance from Pat Ast) was never intended to be taken all that seriously.

It's a WIP movie: Women in Prison. In this "Reform School" the girls night time gear consists of g-string panties, lingerie, high heels... basically sexy to a silly degree. This has all the clichés you want, with nudity, violence, girl fights, all that sort of stuff. Wendy O Williams was great as the ultra violent gang leader Charlie. She also did great work on the sound track.We know this is a WIP cliché film and the purpose is titillation and all that sort of stuff, but it didn't really seem clear to me. A lot of the violence was pretty brutal for the sort of movie it was and many of the scenes are quite realistic, with realistic, emotional performances from some of the key actors, which is quite at odds with that "women in Prison" titillation theme, especially when you have inmates incongruously wearing high heels, thigh high stockings and g-strings to bed!It seemed almost like a bizarre mash-up of two different films that'd been crudely rammed together: You have Wendy O Williams and her gang of ultra-sexy, violent, tough girls, and the huge lumpy, hilariously sadistic and over the top Pat Ast as "Eddie" doing their very best to make it a sort of Rocky Horror Show ridiculous soft core romp (which would have been marvellous), VS this other theme with the sympathetic characters Jenny, Lisa and Dr Norton where it's a serious look at abuse of power and the horrible toll abuse takes on its victims- almost as it they're going for Cool Hand Luke or Full Metal Jacket sort of stuff...That made a weird mix that didn't really fit together well at all. It's as if the film makers were trying to be too smart for the material.

I had heard that this film was a parody of women-in-prison films, so when I rented it I was expecting to laugh, as well as see the usual exploitation elements--hopefully lampooned--but they weren't. This isn't a parody, though it tries for laughs in some places (who can forget the stomping-of-the-cat scene?), which makes it essentially just another women-in-prison flick.Here we have misunderstood blonde Linda Carol taken to a reform school run by Sybil Danning and her obese henchwoman Pat Ast. Linda takes mousy Sherri Stoner under her wing, but when she runs afoul of butch reform school veteran--and Pat Ast's main squeeze--she puts a target on her back that remains there throughout the film. Linda tries to keep her weak-willed friend from harm while also trying to keep Wendy O. Williams from branding her backside. Reform school shrink Charlotte McGinnis is trying to get Danning fired for running a suspect reformation camp but she needs the help of Linda Carol in doing so. Linda finds it hard to help with trips to solitary, beatings in the bathroom and failed escape attempts.STORY: $$ (This would have been better had DeSimone went with the parody angle. We have all the WIP stereotypes here but he fails to make fun of them. Rather than a parody, we are treated to a by-the-numbers Caged Heat clone).ACTING: $$$ (Not too bad. Linda Carol is fine in the lead role. her beauty helps a great deal but the lady can act too. Pat Ast is terrific as the Warden's sinister right-hand. Wendy O. Williams doesn't give the greatest line reads but she was right for the role. Sybil Danning fans will be disappointed because she has little to do here, other than issue midnight scripture readings over the PA system).NUDITY: $$$$ (Like most WIP films, there is plenty of it to go around. Linda Carol is nude several times--she has an extraordinary body. There are a couple shower scenes, which would have been a great opportunity to parody, but it is missed. Rough-looking Wendy O.Williams is topless in the shower, as is about every other woman in this film. Sybil Danning, however, keeps her clothes on throughout the movie).