Grindhouse Weekly: REFORM SCHOOL GIRLS (1986)

This week, we’re heading back to prison to talk about one of the later released women in prison films, titled Reform School Girls.  Released in 1986 and Directed by former porn producer Tom DeSimone, this film is much lighter and more accessible than most others in its category.  The goal seemed to be a to create a satirical look at the prison film, complete with rampant nudity and tons of girl fights.  Unfortunately, nothing about this was particularly clever or funny, and it simply ended up being a slightly more boring version of the type of film they were satirizing.

The film begins with a young girl named Jenny (Linda Carol) who gets involved in a shoot out with her boyfriend.  After her boyfriend is killed, she’s captured by the police and sentenced to spend three years in a reform school.  Upon arriving at the school with a group of other girls, Jenny quickly finds that this is no ordinary school.

Things play out in typical women in prison fashion.  There’s plenty of random nudity and shower scenes, and it seems that all these girls do all day is hang out by their bunks half naked.  There’s also an evil head mistress who frequently punishes the girls by denying them food and making them till soil in a dirt field for some reason.

Plenty of fights break out between the girls as well, mainly between the newbies and Charlie (Wendy O. Williams), who fancies herself the de facto leader of the bunch.  The interesting thing about Charlie is that though this is supposed to be a school for underage girls, she looks to be in her mid forties.

Of course, like most of these films, the girls end up revolting against the tyrannical staff and burn the place to the ground.  This riot scene is really the only big action set piece in the film, but proves to be as forgettable and dull as the rest of the 94-minute runtime.

Since the film features an entirely female cast, I was wondering how they were going to fill their quota of needless sex that filled so many great exploitation flicks of the 80s.  Fortunately, the filmmakers must have been thinking that too, as there’s a completely pointless segment involving Jenny escaping the school, meeting a guy, having sex with him, then he drives her back to the school and drops her off.

Though I don’t claim to be an expert on this specific sub-genre, I think it’s safe to say Reform School Girls is fairly close to the bottom of the barrel.  Fans of 80s trash flicks will probably get a kick out of the cheesiness of it, but if you’re looking for an introduction to the women in prison genre, go with something like The Hot Box or Women in Cages instead.