BARBED WIRE DOLLS
Color, 1976, 81 mins. 2 secs.
Directed by Jess Franco
Starring Lina Romay, Paul Muller, Monica Swinn, Beni Cardoso, Roger Darton, Ronald Weiss Eric Falk, Raymond Hardy, Peggy Markoff, Martine Stedil
Delirium Home Video (Blu-ray) (US RA HD), Ascot Elite (Blu-ray & DVD) (Germany R0 HD/PAL), Full Moon (DVD) (US R1 NTSC), Anchor Bay (DVD) (UK R0 PAL) / WS (1.78:1) (16:9)

WOMEN IN CELLBLOCK 9
Color, 1978, 77 mins. 49 secs.
Directed by Jess Franco
Starring Susan Hemingway, Karine Gambier, Howard Vernon
Delirium Home Video (Blu-ray) (US RA HD), Ascot Elite (Blu-ray & DVD) (Germany R0 HD/PAL), Full Moon (DVD) (US R1 NTSC) / WS (1.78:1) (16:9)

One of the defining periods of director Jess Franco's career (encompassing hundreds of films) Barbed Wire Dollswas undoubtedly his Barbed Wire Dolls1970s work for Swiss producer and distributor Erwin C. Dietrich, which produced a number of delirious masterworks with a strong erotic edge. The Dietrich-Franco cycle was bookended by a pair of particularly vicious women-in-prison films, a format Franco had already used to strike box office gold with 99 Women for producer Harry Alan Towers in 1968. However, under Dietrich things got far more graphic and bleak, swapping out star power for gynecological nudity and pulpy torture sequences.

The first and most famous of these, Barbed Wire Dolls (Frauengefängnis), benefited from an all-time exploitation classic title and a simple, jaw-dropping extreme variation on the prison movies like The Big Doll House already made popular by Roger Corman. Shot in Honduras, the sweaty, sleazy proceedings begin with Franco regular Beni Cardoso as a completely insane prisoner, Rosaria, desperate for food and crawling on the floor under the thumb of a sadistic guard, Nestor (Falk, another Franco/Dietrich staple). The prison touts itself on using drastic methods to rehabilitate its inmates (who try to smuggle out letters urging governmental action), but no one Barbed Wire Dollsseems to actually get reformed by the sadistic, Nazi-fixated, monocle-sporting warden (Swinn) and the phony Dr. Carlos Costa (Muller). Barbed Wire Dolls Recent arrival Maria (Romay), who's been sent to do time after killing a rape attempt by her father (Franco, in a mind-boggling "slow motion" scene that's now passed into infamy). Realizing she may never leave these walls alive, Maria tries to drum up support for an escape attempt among her scant few fellow inmates. Meanwhile another of the guards, José (Hardy, a.k.a. Ramon Ardid, Romay's husband at the time), has serious qualms about his occupation, especially when his bosses only seem to be interested in administering vicious electroshock treatments to the naked prisoners because "Death is too good for 'em. They enjoy their torture. It's an honor for them."

Though far from the first film of its kind, Barbed Wire Dolls is perhaps the most representative European women-in-prison around. The cast is jammed with familiar repertory players, and Romay, Falk, Cardoso, and especially Swinn are really giving it their all here along with an effective score by Walter Baumgartner. Without spoiling things, it also sets up the tradition of these things ending very badly, making these among the darkest and most unsparing of Barbed Wire DollsFranco's depictions of society even compared to his multiple takes on the Marquis de Sade. The film ended up doing the drive-in Barbed Wire Dollsand grindhouse circuit for ages, often with its more explicit shots of penetration via fingers taken out by local censors or projectionists; likewise, those seconds were ordered to be cut in the U.K. by the BBFC all the way through the DVD era. As usual, Dietrich's Ascot Elite / VIP line issued a sparkling HD restoration on DVD and then on Blu-ray, the latter with DTS-HD 5.1 German, English, or French audio options with optional translated English or Japanese subtitles. Also included are a quick 26s German intro by Falk, the German trailer, an English-subtitled featurette (12m10s) with Dietrich, Franco, and Romay, a 27-image gallery, a 40m49s Franco audio interview (not English friendly), and a completely crazy Falk and Dietrich video conversation (17m56s).

The 2026 Blu-ray from Delirium features the identical scan as the Ascot Elite disc, featuring DTS-HD MA English and German 2.0 mono options plus 5.1 tracks in both languages with optional yellow English SDH subtitles. The mono mixes are the better and more authentic option, with the German one faring best since it uses way more of the music score compared to the sparse English one. It's dubbed either way though since this was shot without live sound in a variety of languages, as usual. Dennis Daniel appears twice here, in a new audio commentary waxing rhapsodic about Franco's cinema and presenting a lengthy phone interview with Stephen Thrower (alas, with audio that's difficult to make out) and a lighthearted "Sisters in the Slammer" featurette (11m28s) running down the finer points of Franco's WIP output in general. Then you get the archival Franco-Romay-Dietrich Women in Cellblock 9featurette (12m10s), a 2014 audio interview with Peter Strickland (24m8s) timed with his Franco-influenced The Duke of Burgundy in conversation with Chris Alexander about their love of Franco's films and treatment of sexuality. Also included are the home video Women in Cellblock 9Ascot Elite trailer, the German trailer, a 3m46s photo gallery, and bonus trailers for Doriana Gray, Love Camp, Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun, Satanic Sisters, and Rolls Royce Baby.

Though Dietrich was initially appalled upon seeing Franco's film, its financial success ensured more along the same lines including Ilsa the Wicked Warden, Love Camp, and the last of the cycle, Women in Cellblock 9. The most nihilistic and vicious of the bunch, this one features a minuscule cast and takes place in a single claustrophobic location when everyone isn't hanging around outside in the usual jungle scenery. Here Karine (Satanic Sisters' Gambier) is driving a truck full of revolutionaries through the wilderness when they're ambushed by the vile Dr. Milton Costa (Vernon, ideally cast) and an uncredited female warden. Three of them including Karine are forced into confinement at the infamous titular prison where Costa, excited at the prospect of using his sharp medical instruments again after being banned Women in Cellblock 9three years ago, orchestrates various torments for the radicals he hates so much. Food and water are used as bargaining chips against the naked inmates who are kept standing and chained together for hours, with young left-wing student Maria Women in Cellblock 9(Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun's Hemingway) turning into a particular target. As their oppressors wine and dine themselves at night, how long can the women endure this treatment before they finally try to break free?

Sort of a greatest hits summation of where the women in prison movie was at the time, Women in Cellblock 9 feels very, very Dietrich with a stronger emphasis on decor and more flattering nudity than Barbed Wire Dolls. It's even more unsparing though, with touches like classical music playing over Hemingway being forced to orally service the warden in front of a salivating Vernon somehow feeling scuzzier than usual. Apart from being prohibited outright in the U.K., this has followed the same Dietrich-Franco trajectory on home video (its theatrical play was much, much smaller than usual) and slack-jawed patrons treated to the usual Ascot Elite DVD and Blu-ray options. That latter one includes English or German DTS-HD 5.1 dubs or French Dolby Digital 2.0 mono, with only Italian subtitles offered for some reason. The only extras are the trailer, bonus trailers (Voodoo Passion, Ilsa the Wicked Warden, Jack the Ripper, Satanic Sisters, Blue Rita), and a 17-image gallery.

Women in Cellblock 9The 2026 Blu-ray from Delirium is a very clear slam dunk that makes the earlier presentation nearly Women in Cellblock 9superfluous; taken from the same master and looking identical, it features DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono English or German plus 5.1 options along with two English subtitle options -- translated or SDH, both welcome and very handy here. The source material still looks immaculate here and, as with most of the other Dietrich titles, it's pulled from the textless camera negative which means the titles have been newly generated. Troy Howarth delivers a new audio commentary appraising this as the finale of the Dietrich-Franco cycle, noting the multitude of Baumgartners all over the place here, mourning the lack of IDs for many cast members, covering the Portugal and Switzerland shooting, and plenty more. Also included are the Ascot Elite video trailer and bonus trailers for Barbed Wire Dolls, Doriana Gray, Love Camp, Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun, Satanic Sisters, Rolls Royce Baby, and The Amorous Sisters.

Reviewed on September 27, 2026