Escape from Womens Prison

Director– Giovanni Brusadori

Starring – Lilli Carati, Marina Daunia

Country of Origin – Italy

Distributor - Severin

Number of discs –  1

Reviewed by - Scott MacDonald

Date- 05/08/2019

As the film opens 4 women lead by Lilli Carati's Monica are in the midst of a prison escape, and running through a town plaza to their connection Pierre who is set to help them out. Unfortunately, a pair of cops are there causing  a struggle, the cops are killed, and Pierre is shot, causing a severe injury before they've even started. The foursome end up on a bus with a women's tennis team, who they hold hostage, forcing them all into the home of the judge that sentenced them.

    Escape from Women's Prison is a 1978 Italian lensed women in prison film that oddly plays with the conventions of the genre enough to keep it interesting. The film opens with the escape, unlike many films of the genre, it does not build up to an escape and chase. It just hits the ground running. After that we have the 4 prisoners, locking up the tennis team in a basement, before trying to figure out how to get out of their scenario, and also get Pierre taken care of before he dies.

    The interesting thing here, is how the prisoner's effectively play the "warden" role for the tennis team, effectively switching the script slightly.  Aside from that the film plays out much as you'd expect with lesbianism, violence, sex, and so forth. The U.S. version which is the default on this blu-ray is 83 minutes long,  and is extremely well-paced.   There is an interesting anti-capitalist subtext going on here, that helps add a bit of depth to the film itself.

    Severin Films presents Escape from a Women's Prison with a 1080p AVC encoded transfer that is scanned in 4k from a dupe negative. The film looks like a reasonable filmlike approximation of what it probably looked like theatrical. Detail is solid, the drab color scheme is well-reproduced. There is quite a bit of damage from the source material, but it does not distract, nor take away from the film.  Audio is handled by an English mono track that has some pops and cracking, but overall sounds quite decent.  Extras included the longer Italian edit with Italian audio, and English subs. There is also an interview with Giovanni Brusadori, and a trailer. RECOMMENDED.