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The Jailed Chicks “Lust for Freedom” on Blu-ray!

Broken by the violent death of her partner, who she was also engaged to marry, after a drug bust goes south, undercover officer Gillian Kaites abandons law enforcement and drives across country in an internal turmoiled mess. She’s pulled over by a Georgia County cop after she aids a frantic woman fleeing to escape two men in a black van. Framed for narcotics possession by the corrupt officer, Gillian is drugged and locked away in the County’s women’s penitentiary overseen a strong-handed matron and an unscrupulous warden who dabbles in prostitution trafficking, drug smuggling, and even the occasional snuff filmmaking. Back into a cellblock corner, Gillian must defend herself against the warden’s goons, protect other girls also falsely incarcerated, and lean into the sympathetic ear of the same corrupt cop that framed her after voicing his years of disgust with the warden’s malfeasance.

Part II of our bamboozled behind bars and following the 1986 examination of Eric Karson’s military simulation turned enslavement “Opposing Force,” is our next feature helmed by another director named Eric, notably Eric Louzil, with “Lust for Freedom.” The debut film of Louzil, who went on to helm “Class of Nuke ‘Em High Part II and Part II” for Lloyd Kauman and Michael Herz of Troma Entertainment as well as slaving over standalone horror and sleazy schlockers in “Bikini Beach Race” and “Night of the Beast,” was also the first feature penned by the American-born, UCLA grad with a penchant for low-budget lewidies, cowritten alongside the “Shadows Run Black” writing duo, Craig Kusaba and Duke Howard. With the working title of “Georgia County Lockup,” which in actuality the film was shot in various California and Nevada locations, such as Ely, Nevada, “Lust for Freedom” is an 8 x 8 cell of nudity, violence, and corruption under the co-production companies of Mesa Films and Troma Entertainment, with the latter reediting the original script and adding ADR adlibs to apply a sexed up and Troma-fied integration of product into their independent collection. Louzil and Laurel A. Koernig produce the film with Troma bigwigs Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz as executive producers.

“Lust for Freedom” has many eccentric characters with many assorted plotlines in what is essentially an all women battle royal brawl in the cat-scratchin calaboose. Stirring up trouble like a piece of scrap metal lodged in the gears of a well-oiled machine is tall and beautiful former cop, Gillian Kaites. Played by Melanie Coll in her only known role, Kaites is only the bear in the bees’ nest, forced into confinement under false pretenses and to be subjugated by the likes of a wayward officialdom with lust in their eyes, greed in their pockets, and a disdain for disobedience. Coll’s a bit flat footed with her performance and her Karate Kokutsu Dachi stance could use some improvement, but the tall, muscular, curly haired and light blonde actress can wield a multi-round popping automatic rifle with authority. Stark against her Amazonian physique, not in a hard pressed and sexualized way, is main antagonist is the unbecoming Southern gentleman Warden Maxwell under the balding and overweight guise Howard Knight, but Kaites is more in tune against the procrustean penitentiary matron Ms. Pusker and Judi Trevor gives a Hell in a cell pastiche of early fascist women of Roger Corman produced WIP films, enforcing her will with prison muscle in the miscreant tough Vicky (Elizabeth Carlisle, “Evil Acts”) and the oversized guerilla (professional wrestler Dee “Matilda the Hun” Booher, “Spaceballs,” “DeathStalker II”). Ultimately, Kaites sees her only path to escape through the very same person that wrongly confines her in the first place. William J. Kulzer (“Class of Nuke ‘Em High Part II: Subhumanoid Meltdown”) doesn’t quite fit the corrupted bill of Sheriff Coale, a mild manner and seemingly reasonable officer who goes with the despicable flow of sex trafficking amongst other indelicacies. Yet, maybe that’s the purpose in Kulzer’s character, to be conflicted by the choices he and his callous cohort has made that made him stick out as the least repulsive individual behind the concreate and metal barred big house. “Lust for Freedom” rounds out the cast with Donna Lederer, John Tallman, George Engelson, Rob Rosen, Shea Porter, Rich Crews, Raymond Oceans, Elizabeth Carroll, Lor Stickel, and Joan Tixei.

Gratuitous, full-frontal lesbian sex. Yes, “Lust for Freedom” appeals to the very definition of its own title, like many other WIP productions and though a core element to the integrity of the subgenre, the creamy smoothness of two curvaceous, naked bodies getting it on shouldn’t always be the main selling point. Luckily, Louzil ponies up more salacious material for his pinks in the clink caper. An elaborate spiderweb of activity balloons and pulsates outward from the moment Kaites crosses path with an evening-dressed escapee being chased by a scary looking Native American and his sociopathic hooligan partner in a black van. “Lust for Freedom” may be hammy and cheesy but what it’s definitely not is dull in its multifaceted approach to expose character layers. Some characters grade more toward deviancy, such as Warden Maxwell and Ms. Pusker, while others are lifted toward a more redemptive means, such as with Sheriff Coale; that shepherd “Lust for Freedom” into a culminating jailbreak. The narrative doesn’t necessarily focus around Kaites but she’s on a redemption arc to dig her out of a despair pit and into a fight worth fighting for purpose after the death of her finance, set up in the opening act. As she evades the Vickey’s directed infringement to rough up the new girl, Kaites takes under her wing a fright clink chick named, another wrongly accused prisoner after being taken wandering the road, a theme that is a reoccurring motif from Kaites to Donna in thinking the young women can manage the world and their problems on their own accord but at a cost. However, whatever semblance is left of Louzil’s original script has likely been lost once Troma revamped it into the finished product you see today. Riddled with choppy cuts and incoherent segues, we have to wonder about Kaites’ role that may have been transmuted into a lesser core commodity in the final product.

Troma Entertainment releases a high-def, Blu-ray release of “Lust for Freedom.” The AVC encoded, 1080p resolution, widescreen release, in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio, compressed from its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. Lloyd Kaufman mentions Louzil had shot the film on 16 mm and Troma subsequently blew up the negative to a 35 mm print that reframes the transfer for projection. Image-wise, the picture appears relatively clean albeit a plush grain and a few visible 16 mm cigarette burns with little-to-no age wear or exposure issue and the BD25 storage format has capacity aplenty to render an adequately compressed image with hardly any loss to the quality. Since the quality is heavily granulated, definitely no DNR implemented, the compression doesn’t suffer from a lack of a sharper, restored image. The audio is an English language Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo can be echoey at times, as if the boom is catching warehouse reflection, but dialogue does topple in an appropriately laid out track mix that’s intertwined with hair metal band Grim Reaper’s titular “Lust for Freedom” single. We don’t get a ton of depth in the close quarters of the prison set but neither do we receive any depth in the exteriors either, sustaining most of the volume in a forefront stasis. Troma adds spotty ADR to kitschy up to Troma’s ludicrous level and its quite evident like a sore thumb that doesn’t quite match the ingrained audio mix. There are no subtitles available. Extras include the original DVD intro by Lloyd Kaufman, which also plays automatically at the startup of the feature, a directory’s commentary by Eric Louzil that is asynchronous with the feature in what is an approx. one-minute delay behind the Louzil’s retrospect, the original theatrical trailer, an interview with Lloyd Kaufman, a brief, brief clip of Eli Roth’s encouragement to just go and do a movie to the best of your ability, a Troma-themed showcase of one of their more modern Tromettes – Mercedes the Muse, the Radiation March, Gizzard Face 2: The Return of Gizzard Face, which has been on a slew of Troma’s releases over the past year, and coming attractions from the independent company. The Blu-ray comes in a tradition snapper with a guard tower, barbed wired, and Gillian Kaites with a semi-auto in her grip and barely cladded and torn clothes. No insert inside the case and the disc pressed art is the same as the cover illustration. This Troma release comes unrated, is region free, and has a runtime of 94 minutes. Plenty of desire for “Lust for Freedom,” busty babes behind bars barely bores and this vintage Troma keeps the WIP lacquer wet with self-satisfactory sadism and sexual spiciness.

The Jailed Chicks “Lust for Freedom” on Blu-ray!

When Camille’s parents awake to an unknown and encompassing rumbling and what sounds like agonized wailing, they decide to go investigate not too far from their camping tent where their daughter, Camille, still sleeps. When Camille awakes, the rumbling is now deafening and her parents have disappeared into the night, leaving the young child frightened beyond belief. 25 years later and still haunted by the phenomena, art post-graduate Camille conducts recorded interviews with witnesses of the event along with James, a film studies student working on a documentary project. When the rumbling returns in the Nevada desert, Camille and James take a train to record research just outside the affected area and not become too close to the dangers that’s traumatized Camille, but when the train stalls in a tunnel halfway to the destination, Camille and James awake alone with no passengers or conductors in sight and a rumbling noise that isn’t the train’s engine. Camille finds herself once again in the midst of wailing and now something outside the train is trying to get in.

Stick “Infernum” into the sub-horror category of the great and fear-inducing unknown perhaps based loosely off the unexplained low-frequency hums, such as a Taos hum, stretching from the U.S. to the U.K., writer-director Dutch Marich sensationalizes the phenomena by adding the trimmings of tortured souls howling in torment as a rift opens up between Camille’s world and, supposed, Hell. Filmed primarily inside an antique rail train from the Northern Nevada Railway Museum and inside the railway tunnel west of Ely, Nevada, the “Hunting” and “Miserable Sinners” filmmaker, Marich, slow churns a low-budget friendly and simple plot into a materializing worst case scenario with the anxiety-riddle markings of being trapped, surrounded, and alone inside a dark and confined space with a cacophony of screams, as if in a dark-padded psychiatric cell. Mariach’s Luminol Entertainment and Vekinis Studios, headed by former Luminol Entertainment employee, Peter Panagiotis Vekinis, collaborate on the project.

Playing the traumatized Camille is “American Mummy” and “Dude Bro Party Massacre III” b-movie actress, Suziey Block, who has to not only struggle with coping against the hauntingly strange event plaguing her past, but also deal with an overprotective, yet also apathetic boyfriend in a role filled by who could very well be a young Christopher Meloni lookalike, “Happy Camp’s” Michael Barbuto. Block’s become something of a scream queen over the last few years and “Infernum” continues to make the Michigan born actress keep screaming her lungs out; however, its Camille and Hunter’s hot-and-cold relationship that topples the main theme here as Camille, through Block’s insensate performance, feels disinterested in unearthing what happened to her parents while being too engaged in Hunter’s desensitize, if not rightly justified, position toward her glazed over stress, but Block is engrossed by the fear just enough to sell it. Rounding out Infernum’s cast is Clinton Roper Elledge, Sarah Schoofs (“The Theatre of Terror”), and Rita Habermann.

“Infernum” can feel like a simmering slow burn of paranormal byproduct and resonates closely with Milla Jovovich’s extraterrestrial faux found footage thriller, “The 4th Kind.” The lingering scenes with tedious exchanges render a remote sense of terror that’s teamed with more tension from Hunter and Camille’s argumentative discourse. Yet, when things seem to be dwindling as Camille and her filmography friend, James, board the vintage train to the ghost town of Kimberly (and when I say ghost town, I mean an abandoned mining area), that’s when things go from a steadfast numb to a terrifying turn of the inexplicable circumstance kind. Camille finds herself in a familiar situation like 25 years ago, but the environments different with desolate train, an ominous presence over the loudspeaker, and though most passengers have disappeared, there are some who are found, blue as ice in the face, and lifeless. The tension is thick with the engine rumbling of an infernal-sounding machine that reeks havoc with cries and screams to amplify night jitters. The open ending leaves room for a wide berth of possibilities and interpretation, making “Infernum” metaphysically loiter in between the rifts of our minds.

“Infernum” is a spooky train ride to hell and back, pulling into the DVD home video and digital platform station from the independent film distributors, Indican Pictures. Unfortunately, the video and audio quality will not be covered because of the DVD-R screener, but I can say that the LFE audiophiles are immensely characteristic and behooves viewers to play on a surround sound system or quality headphones will also do the trick. The film’s innate hues are on the bleaker, gloomier side, backdropped by the frigid air of a wintery Nevada dessert. Other than Indican Pictures’ trailers for other films, including “The Lurker” among other films, there were no other special features beyond a static menu. I highly recommend “Infernum’s” spooky vibe and unlimited possibilities all aboard it’s simple, yet effective paranormal premise.