Girls In Prison

Sometimes I'll be watching a movie whose plot line is so badly contrived that I can't decide if it was supposed to be camp, or is the result a bad script.

Such is the case for Girls In Prison, a made-for-cable-TV flick released in 1994. I watched this sucker last night and by the end had no idea if the screenwriter, director and producer were serious or were poking fun at prison movies.

And I'm afraid it's the former.

The crimes committed by the first two girls, Melba (Bahni Turpin) and Carol (a very sexy Ione Skye), are ridiculous. There's a Tarantino-esque feel to those scenes, but somehow they come off flat, as if the director was satirizing a B-rated 1950s slasher movie.

The principal character, Aggie O'Hanlon (Missy Crider) is an aspiring country singer who gets framed for murdering a record studio executive. The frame-up is accomplished by Jennifer (Anne Heche), a slutty, yet sultry office assistant. And that's no spoiler -- the plot for this turkey is as predictable as an empty quart of prune juice: you always know what's coming next.

To make things worse, the movie introduces a Hispanic detective, nicknamed Lucky (Miguel Sandoval), who conducts a bizarre, almost Quixotic investigation to prove Aggie's innocence.

In the movie's denouement, Jennifer makes a confession under duress while Aggie repeats each line of her confession over a bullhorn. This scene, probably more than any other, feels so contrived that I was honestly pitying the actresses involved.

Bottom line: This is a bad movie. And it is not even bad in a "can't take my eyes off of the train wreck" kind of way -- it's just a stinker. So, unless you are just desperate to see Ione Skye and Bahni Turpin making out in a prison shower, keep this version of Girls In Prison off of your NetFlix queue. It's a big waste of time.

Fortunately, I had the pleasure of watching The Shawshank Redemption immediately afterward. Now that is a prison movie worth watching.