Already a stronger and more interesting story than the previous prison exploitation film from Mattei, Women’s Prison Massacre is a lot more visually interesting, opening right off the bat with a somewhat campy stage performance being put on by Emanuelle and a few of her inmate friends for the rest of the women in the prison. This play, very much intended to rile up and excite the inmates into riot or revolution, has more colour in it than the entire previous entry in the Emanuelle series from Mattei as a whole. While Emanuelle once again finds herself in a tortuous prison, this time she is thrown in there as retaliation from a politician who doesn’t want her to blow the lid on a story involving him. The usual torture that comes from various prison guards is rather short-lived so that way an invading force of four male criminals can come in and have their way with the female prisoners. So quickly do the slightly lesbian undertones of the dominant prison guards give way to the crude force of men in what I can only assume was an unintentional commentary on hierarchy under hegemonic systems. Mattei’s filmmaking is also just overall more interesting here, playing around with overlays and dramatic lighting in a way that wasn’t present in Violence In A Women’s Prison. Whether this is a style evolution or just the reality of resources allocated during the filming of both films since they were filmed pretty much at the same time, I cannot say.
Already a stronger and more interesting story than the previous prison exploitation film from Mattei, Women’s Prison Massacre is a lot more visually interesting, opening right off the bat with a somewhat campy stage performance being put on by Emanuelle and a few of her inmate friends for the rest of the women in the prison. This play, very much intended to rile up and excite the inmates into riot or revolution, has more colour in it than the entire previous entry in the Emanuelle series from Mattei as a whole. While Emanuelle once again finds herself in a tortuous prison, this time she is thrown in there as retaliation from a politician who doesn’t want her to blow the lid on a story involving him. The usual torture that comes from various prison guards is rather short-lived so that way an invading force of four male criminals can come in and have their way with the female prisoners. So quickly do the slightly lesbian undertones of the dominant prison guards give way to the crude force of men in what I can only assume was an unintentional commentary on hierarchy under hegemonic systems. Mattei’s filmmaking is also just overall more interesting here, playing around with overlays and dramatic lighting in a way that wasn’t present in Violence In A Women’s Prison. Whether this is a style evolution or just the reality of resources allocated during the filming of both films since they were filmed pretty much at the same time, I cannot say.