Don't listen to the negative reviews

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The acting in this movie is really good.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

After being wrongly accused of prostitution "Marie" (Maria Rohm ) is sent to an extremely harsh island prison known as the "Castle of Death" which is run by a sadistic director named "Thelma Diaz" (Mercedes McCambridge) and her immediate supervisor "Governor Santos" (Herbert Lom). While there she is subjected to all kinds of abuse which includes both torture and rape. However, her hopes of being treated decently are revived when a new director by the name of "Leonie Caroll" (Maria Schell) arrives and appears to have the interests of the prisoners in mind. Now, rather than reveal any more of this film and risk ruining it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that as far as Women-in-Prison (WIP) movies are concerned this one wasn't too bad. Admittedly, the addition of several beautiful women like Luciana Paluzzi (as "Natalie Mendoza"), Rosalba Neri ("Zoie"), Elisa Montes ("Helga") and the aforementioned Maria Rohm and Maria Schell had much to do with this assessment but that's an important ingredient with movies of this type anyway. Additionally, having established actors like Herbert Lom and Mercedes McCambridge helped as well. On the other hand there was at least one particular scene which the director (Jesus Franco) probably intended to be artistic but totally bungled as it was much too dark and blurry. Likewise, the film seemed to lack continuity from one scene to another which also lessened the overall quality to some degree. On a side note I should probably add that there are several versions of this movie out on the market and at least one of these has an X-rating. So viewer caution is advised. Along with that I should probably also point out that the movie I saw was filmed in French with English subtitles in case some viewers might need to know as well. In short, while this movie clearly isn't Academy Award winning material it still wasn't terribly bad and I rate it as only slightly below average.

Women in Prison, the soft core exploitation cut! Even by director Jesús Franco's inept standards this bottom feeds at the well of pointlessness. From the moment that we are introduced to the ladies of this penal island hell, in a whirl of bad dubbing, bad colour and camera techniques from the kinder garten, you know you are going to have to stick forks in your legs for alternative entertainment.These lady cons are babes, they don't look like the fictional caged dolls of Prisoner Cell Block H, or real life monsters like Aileen Wuornos, on no! They have wandered in off of the pages of Penthouse and Playboy, or from one of my dreams when I was a horny teenager. I was half expecting Emmanuelle to make an appearance at some point, but Franco probably used all his budget on getting Herbert Lom, Mercedes Mccambridge and Maria Schell to star!Yes, three quality thesps in this! Lom is resplendent in stubble and shifty shades, and with a sinister limp to accentuate his degenerate badness. McCambridge is some harpy bitch with a screw loose and a bad accent, she wants to be Eva to Herb's Adolf. Then poor Maria, wandering around lost, like someone slipped a Mickey Finn in her cuppa and she has no idea what film she is in. The three of them must have been so proud and had annual reunions to rejoice at what a fun time they had on the shoot.The plot, basically, is girls in prison are abused and used by a sadistic regime that's meant to reform. There are cat-fights, some flesh, an escape that is used purely to introduce some blokes from the men's prison on the other side of the island, and of course rape, torture, lesbianism, desperation and some sand! All tastefully filmed...of course. Woeful film and woeful film making, but it still gave me one of the biggest laughs of the year, and that porn movie jazz is half decent! 2/10

99 Women starts as a small boatload of women arrive at an unnamed island to be become prisoners of Governor Santos (Herbert Lom) & chief warden Madame Diaz (Mercedes McCambridge) in a state prison known as the 'Castle of Death', amongst them is the pretty blonde Marie (Maria Rohm) who pleads her innocence. Branded inmate number 99 this is how Marie is to be known from now on, after trying to help a fellow inmate the warden decides number 99 needs punishing, meanwhile a kind hearted investigator from the mainland named Leonie Carrol (Maria Schell) is sent to the prison to root out corruption & abuse but Governor Santos is on to a good thing & doesn't intend to let Carrol spoil it. Marie decides to escape & along with another couple of inmates manages to make it into the harsh jungles but things aren't much better out there than inside the prison...This English, Lichtenstein, German, Italian & Spanish co-production was written & directed by the prolific Jesus Franco whom I consider to be one of the two worst filmmakers in the horror & sleaze genre, I'm sorry but I just find virtually all of his films absolutely worthless & even worse mind numbingly boring & badly made. Lets take the abomination that is 99 Women as an example, at almost an hour & forty minutes this feels twice as long & for a film where virtually nothing happens 99 Women is slow going & I was throughly bored by it. Hell, I started to play some games on my phone about an hour in I was so bored. The story is crap, the dialogue is awful & the character's are cardboard thin. As an early example of the Women in Prison genre 99 Women really doesn't hold up, the location used looks more like a vineyard, there's no shower scene & little in the way of genuine sleaze. The script tries it's hand at a bit of drama with the plight of the abused women & the most dull prison escape ever filmed. People just don't act like people, people don't talk like people & there's not enough sleaze here to make this watchable, another worthless piece of crap from Franco who has his admirers & fans but for the life of me I can't see why.The whole look of 99 Women is dull, some of the locations are nice but do not look anything like a prison & the way the women wear shirts but not much else means I never got the Women in Prison vibe from this at all. Surprisingly light on nudity & sex there's not a great deal of violence either although Franco manages to include a scene where a woman attacks & stabs a Snake despite it just laying on the floor doing no-one any harm, it would have been quicker & easier & safer is the woman had just stepped over it or walked around it, you know? To be honest I can't really remember much about this, it just sort of went in one ear & straight out the other if you know what I mean with no impact on me at all. The mythical French version includes hardcore sex scenes featuring people not in the rest of the film having sex in places not in the rest of the film.Apparently filmed in Valencia in Spain this cheap film features lots of ugly zooms & really boring shots that Franco holds for ages, the editing is also bad with character's jumping around all over the place with the final riot at the end the best (or worst) example of this. The women here really aren't that good looking although a couple are attractive enough I suppose, Herbert Lom deserved better than this.99 Women is more crap from cult director Franco but this time there isn't even any sleaze or violence to make it bearable (unless you watch the badly edited French hardcore version) & is yet another film by Franco that I can honestly say I hated. The sort of film that makes me want to give up watching films altogether.

Surprisingly effective and well made WIP with Maria Schell and Herbert Lom as well as many of the usual good looking suspects. Not as violent as some of Franco's later efforts, this is in fact pretty sensual and always good looking and would slot alongside 'Eugenie….' and 'Venus in Furs' from the same period better than one would imagine. Good performances all round including a peculiarly effective one from a certain Mercedes Cambridge, who was apparently in 'Johnny Guitar'! Enjoyable and this just shows how well the old guy could direct if he put his mind to it or wasn't too restrained by others. Also he possibly refrained from indulging himself too much here because of his esteemed cast. Good score too from Bruno Nicolai.