The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The acting in this movie is really good.

The title itself should give you an idea of how campy this film is going to be. Prison-A-Go-go! Completely lives up to the cameo by Troma's Lloyd kaufman.A strange parody of woman in prison films, a woman gets herself incarcerated in order to find her roommate who gets kidnapped and sent to a prison in the Philippines (Ironic in the 70s, women in prison films took place the Philippines to save money, now they take place right here in America… to save money).In prison, the girls go up against a newly hired early 20 something warden who just needed a job that did not require a drug test, and a mad scientist who looks to do weird experiments on the ladies. Plus a few more oddly place surprises that goes with the outrageousness of the film and only increases the hystericalness. Prison-A-Go-Go! Lives up to every stereotype in the book, from inserted needlessly shower scenes (woman and men), homosexual guards (just the male ones) participating in rape (or rather being raped by the prisoners), and the torturing of prisoners with ear flips and tickling. It even has an elaborate prison escape plan. The only thing it does not have is a Pam Grier-like black girl that appeared in the first batch of women in prison movies. Join the cult following and see this one.

Unfortunately, I missed the first few minutes of this film, so I can't comment on the beginning (I came in on the scene where she can't kill the baby), but the rest of the film is hilarious.All the WIP clichés were there- A woman looking for her sister in jail getting arrested on purpose.The leering jail guard, The butch bully, the cafeteria fight scene, the shower scenes, the big escape scene towards the end, the mad doctor experimenting on the inmates, I completely missed Mary Wuronov's character, but I assume she played the tough dyke warden, etc.... The young guy as the new warden was great, as well as the crazy prison doctor and the Barbra Streisand-type inmate. The punk band scene was a pisser, and there's a lot of jazz in the score featuring a baritone sax (like "I Want To Live" with Susan Hayward and Gerry Mulligan on the soundtrack?).I don't think a total spoof of WIP flicks has been done before, but there have been a lot of partial spoofs. Hopefully this director will do more of the same.

If you take this movie for what it is worth, it is actually quite fun. It was meant to make fun of the classic 70's prison movies. It does that in spades. This movie isn't meant to be some deep, great blockbuster. If you go into it thinking that, you will get burned. However, if your looking for a mildly amusing, gratuitous nudity filled movie to waste a couple of hours, then this is for you. The acting is quite poor, but thats to be expected out of a no-budget movie. The sound is also atrocious, but that may have just been the copy I was watching. I especially liked the countdown clock that informs viewers of when the next shower scene will take place. The product placement was brilliant. Besides, there just aren't enough movies about mad doctors turning hot women into porcupines.

There's no reason at all for a film like "Prison-A-Go-Go!" to exist. Let's just be thankful that it does. It's pure fun and exploitation. Not a single raison d'etre to worry about and not much of a plot so you can keep your mind on vacation and just sit back and enjoy the raucous goings on. Whenever Mary Woronov is in the cast you have to sit up and take notice. A little longer in the tooth than you might remember from "Eating Raoul" or "Rock-n-Roll High School", she remains the premiere female thesp of high comic villainary. If you thought Rhonda Shear's career disappeared when she was replaced by Gilbert Gottfried on television, "Prison-A-Go-Go" will surely remind you why she used to keep you up all night. Lots of pretty girls, lots of gratuitous scenes, lots of laughs. You may not find this on your local vid store shelf but pick up a copy somewhere whenever you can smoke one out.