Chained Heat (1983)

Chained Heat (1983)

“You can get by inside if you do the right people — you know what I mean.”

Synopsis:
A naive young woman (Linda Blair) convicted of manslaughter is sent to prison, where she quickly learns that corruption is rampant, and strategic alliances are everything.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

  • Corruption
  • Prisoners
  • Revenge
  • Stella Stevens Films

Response to Peary’s Review:
Peary accurately refers to this New World WIP flick as a “ridiculous sexploitation” film which “lacks the fun or political subtext” of earlier entries in the genre, but is nonetheless guaranteed to “make any exploitation fan drool” due to its infamous grindhouse cast (including Sybil Danning, John Vernon, Stella Stevens, and Tamara Dobson, among others).

He misses the boat, however, in his mean-spirited assessment of a scene in which “Danning and Blair take a nude shower together and the tall, statuesque Danning is required… to display a sexual interest in the short, plump star”. Doesn’t Peary know that prison sex is often based on power dynamics rather than lust? And while she’s no Penthouse model, Blair’s actually quite cute here.

At any rate, fans of Women-In-Prison flicks won’t want to miss this badly-acted, ridiculously plotted, cliche-ridden smorgasbord of nudity, violence, sex, drugs, and corruption — complete with Blair’s transformation into a righteous avenger by the end. The rest of us, however, can feel free to skip it.

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

  • Joseph Conlan’s score

Must See?
No. Despite its status as a cult favorite, this one is really only must-see viewing for fans of WIP flicks.

Links:

2 thoughts on “Chained Heat (1983)

  1. Yawn.

    Fervent fans of WIP flicks wholeheartedly embrace the ones that are too OTT to miss (‘Caged Heat’, ‘The Big Doll House’, etc.). They even get a genuine thrill out of semi-classy WIP faves such as ‘Caged’ (1950) and WIP sequences that deliver satisfying goods, such as the ones in (the terrific) ‘Freeway’ (1996).

    But ‘Chained Heat’ is a snore. Sure, it has many of the standard WIP elements but the main problem here is the piss-poor script, with some of the most inane dialogue out there. Filmed with about as much imagination as third-rate made-for-tv, it has nudity, sex, bad language, but none of the real grit that can make a WIP movie memorable. It also has a very present boom mike.

    ‘CH’ commits that most unpardonable of WIP sins: it’s dull.

  2. I suspect the boom mikes were meant to be matted out in theatrical presentations for which the film was originally made for. A bit of a cheap shot criticising a film for that for that reason; there are boom mikes frequently visible in many big mainstream films shot in variable ratio formats like soft matte 1.66:1 up to 1.85:1 and especially formats like SuperScope and Super35.

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