Sexual adventuress Emanuelle finds herself behind bars. Once a reporter she has been wrongly incarcerated and has to endure not only the barbarity of the guards but also her fellow inmates, in particular Albina her arch nemesis. As if things couldn't get any worse a quartet of murderous male prisoners arrive under escort with escape on their minds.
First things first, fans of Laura Gemser – the sultry star who made a name for herself in a spin-off series of Emanuelle movies – will be disappointed to learn that she keeps her clothes on in Emanuelle In Prison, a film whose title promises far more than it delivers. Expectant young male audiences would reasonably hope for a cheesy combo of two types of soft-core sexploitation films, the women-in-prison movie and the Emanuelle movie, but it's a tame and dull affair. Granted the familiar elements are all in place, lesbian antics in the showers, authority administered brutality and inmate bitch fights but it's all pretty dreary.
The plot doesn't really need dwelling upon. Initially it seems that it will focus on the innocent Emanuelle's attempts to escape and expose the corruption that led to her imprisonment, but after very little happening the death row inmates arrive and her plight is ignored, only returning in the rushed finale. But no one is going to watch a film like Emanuelle In Prison on the strength of its narrative, the script merely there to move the characters from one sex/action scene to the next. Shame then that director Bruno Mattei's artless movie will disappoint punters on that score. The brief unerotic shenanigans gives way to a dose of fairly standard low budget blood and guts once the new arrivals take over.
The Emanuelle phenomenon shares common ground with the Django spaghetti western series. Sergio Corbucci's 1966 classic starring Franco Nero was so successful that not only were a fistful of unofficial sequels produced but many films Nero subsequently made were retitled internationally to cash in on the popularity of Django, even those that weren't westerns. A similar thing happened to Laura Gemser with films like this going under various titles. Whilst some of her early films are cheesy but stylish soft-core fun Emanuelle In Prison doesn't offer much for fans of trashy titillation and violence. They would be better off seeking out other films in the women-in-prison cycle such as Caged Heat, The Big Bird Cage or gender swap remake of The Defiant Ones, Black Mama, White Mama.
Aka: Women's Prison Massacre, Emanuelle Escapes from Hell, Blade Violent
