Exploitation films

Bamboo House of Dolls

Shaw Brothers takes on the WIP film. As strange a combination as it sounds.

Bare Behind Bars

Brazil's Boca do Lixo does women-in-prison with everything the drive-in cut left out.

House of Whipcord

Pete Walker builds a secret prison to punish the censors who wanted one. Sheila Keith is the nightmare.

Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41

Ito's second, and the most formally daring film in the whole category.

Women in Cages

Pam Grier as the sadist for once. Bleaker than its stablemates.

Female Prisoner Scorpion: Beast Stable

Ito's last. Kaji drags a severed arm through Tokyo in the opening minutes.

Love Camp 7

The film that invented nazisploitation six years before Ilsa made it a genre.

The Big Bird Cage

Funnier and better than the first. Sid Haig is having an excellent time.

Barbed Wire Dolls

Jess Franco's contribution to the cycle. Cheap, delirious and utterly shameless, even for him.

Chained Heat

Linda Blair goes to prison. A sleazy 80s update of the formula, with a corrupt warden and a hot tub.

Reform School Girls

The women-in-prison film as its own punchline, fronted by the lead singer of the Plasmatics.

The Big Doll House

Jack Hill and Pam Grier invent the modern formula in the Philippines.

Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion

Sold as a women-in-prison quickie. Shot like an art film. Meiko Kaji barely blinks.

Black Mama White Mama

The Defiant Ones with Pam Grier, shot in the Philippines by a Filipino who actually knew the terrain.

Women's Prison Massacre

Late Italian entry. Laura Gemser, and a body count instead of a plot.

99 Women

Franco doing the formula early, with Mercedes McCambridge as the warden.

Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks

Same Ilsa, new empire. The harem keeps the whip, loses the swastika.

Caged Heat

Jonathan Demme's debut, and it is visibly a Jonathan Demme film.

Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS

Shot on the leftover Hogan's Heroes set. Nothing here is defensible; it's catalogued, not recommended.