Just as Hellhole is not your average women-in-prison picture, the Ashland Sanitarium for Women is not your average nuthouse. It’s where Susan (Judy Landers, Stewardess School) is sent after her mother is murdered before her eyes and she suffers a head injury while escaping the killer’s nicotine-stained clutches. Susan awakens in the asylum with a classic case of amnesia, which is convenient for Landers, who always seems absent-minded in her roles. Bless her buxom heart, but she’s all puffy hair and vacant stare.
The reasons for her mom’s death? Purely unimportant, other than to keep Susan in peril even within the institution’s walls, because the killer (Ray Sharkey, Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills) disguises himself as an orderly in hopes of finding her alone so he can finish the job; if he happens to bangs a nurse and/or resident along the way, so be it. Ironically, all the Ashland patients are endangered, because within the bowels of the place, the evil Dr. Fletcher (Mary Woronov, Eating Raoul) and Dr. Dane (Marjoe Gortner, Starcrash) conduct their experimental research toward creating the world’s first chemical lobotomy. Any patient who misbehaves unwittingly serves as a guinea pig.
To paraphrase Spinal Tap’s “Hell Hole,” the window’s dirty, the mattress stinks, the floor is filthy, the walls are thin, the nudity is plentiful. Per the WIP template, toplessness is a must of its caged coquettes, yet Savannah Smiles (!) director Pierre De Moro throws bottomlessness in there, too, to give his flick a bonus layer of ’80s sleaze. More than eager to please in the bared-breast department is Edy Williams (Russ Meyer’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls), delivering her lines in a breathy, cue-cardy voice that makes everything sound suggestive, down to an offer of sharing soap: “Use mine. It’s hypoallergenic.” Despite her efforts to steal the show, that honor is taken by Sharkey as Silk, the chain-smoking heavy in black leather who looks like he arrived from a failed audition for Can’t Stop the Music. To continue that analogy, Nancy Walker’s loss is De Moro’s gain. —Rod Lott