Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

So says one of the denizens of the "big doll house" to a man from the outside who has come to make deliveries but gets more than he bargained for....The Big Doll House is exploitation with a capital X, made in the peak period for such stuff by the redoubtable Jack Hill and starring future cult blaxploitation actress Pam Grier. Shot in the Phillipines, clearly on next-to-no-budget, this is good cheesy fun, women in prison with a lesbian/Nazi guard and a couple of fumbling good ol' hippie-boys (one of them played by cult actor Sid Haig, in an early performance back when he was thin, had hair and came off as an oily ladies' man) who help them out at the most opportune moment. The acting's pretty mediocre, though Grier is just awful here and you get the sense that this film and some of her other early work could have killed her career if not for other...uhh...assets. Hilarious shoot-out ending, awful stunts and effects, lots of bright red paint, I mean blood....

Big Doll House, The (1971) ** (out of 4) Beautiful women, catfights, food fights, torture, lesbianism, mud wrestling and nudity are the highlights of this cult classic Women in Prison film from Jack Hill. There's always a slight bit of sleaze that makes this interesting but overall it's pretty dull without enough story and the dramatic moments don't work. Judy Brown and Pam Grier star.It should also be noted that I prefer the rougher women in prison films by the likes of Jess Franco. Franco started this genre with 99 Women but I prefer his darker WIP films like Barbed Wire Dolls, Women in Cell Block 9 and Sadomania.

For some reason I was expecting more from this films. I don't know why.It began well enough with opening credits that stylishly zoom in and Pam Grier singing 99 years (which also featured in the film Jackie Brown).For the first hour this Corman produced Women in Prison film was a great slice of exploitation cinema. It was surprisingly well made, with good characters and above average acting. Pam Grier and Sid Haig standing out above the rest of the cast.Then after about an hour the film becomes repetitive and boring. The same things happening over and over again. Still its good while it lasts, maybe just turn it off when it starts too get boring.For a better Women in Prison film try maybe Ilsa: She-wolf of the SS.

'The Big Doll House' may not be the first women in prison movie of the 1970s but it was one of the most influential, kicking off the short lived but legendary Made-in-the-Philippines-but-set-in-some-nameless-Banana-republic cycle. The tape I watched was part of "The Pam Grier Collection" but to say Grier is the STAR of this movie is an exaggeration. Judy Brown is the star and Roberta Collins is equally important as Grier. But Brown didn't do all that much after this, and Collins is only remembered by exploitation buffs (for 'Caged Heat', 'Death Race 200' and 'Eaten Alive'), while Grier became a blaxploitation icon. That's cool, but let's not fool ourselves here. As enjoyable as it is watching Pam in this one she really doesn't do all that much. Jack Hill regular Sid Haig ('Spider Baby') has some memorable and amusing schtick with her. He plays a horny guy who brings the female prisoners food and other treats for cash. Grier and Haig obviously made a great team, and Hill would exploit this in his even more enjoyable 'The Big Bird Cage', which isn't a sequel to this movie as many seem to think. 'Bird Cage' is the better movie, but 'Doll House' is still a pretty good movie that any fan of 1970s b-grade movies will get a kick out of.