Hot damn! If you fiend for kinky women locked down behind bars, this movie has got what you need. Before Caged Heat, before Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS, there was The Big Doll House. Jack Hill, the writer and director, gave his all to bring us the exploit-y-est movie ever made about women locked down in a prison. In exists in that bizarro world of hardcore bitches with perfect hair-dos. The film has everything you might want to see in such a situation: showers, mud fights, junkies, torture, full frontal nudity, female-on-female rape, female-on-male rape... Y'know, all those good keywords that will get your site flagged by Google. Of course, all those other women-in-prison movies have most of that as well - but they all suck! So why does The Big Doll House, and its sequel The Big Bird Cage, pwn the competition so fiercely?
Resounding credit goes to Jack Hill for making these movies such a pleasure to watch. From Spider Baby to Foxy Brown, Hill always imparted his movies with a unique style that makes them glow. He is a man who understands that a movie's first job is to entertain, but the extra bits on top of that entertainment are what make the difference between trash and treasure. Every time I watch a Hill movie, I'm impressed with the care that was put into the individual fleshiness of the characters, and how he managed to mold an actor into that role. Pam Grier, of course, is the classic example. Even people who haven't seen her movies (The Big Doll House was the first) are well acquainted with her style, her ethos, her attitude. She can thank Jack Hill for that.
The Big Doll House gives you more than what you want, from the first drum roll for the bad ass theme song sung by Pam Grier to the last explosion. When I had a chance to interview Hill over email, I asked him how his musical background had influenced his directing style. It was somewhat of a leading question - I already knew his movies have some funky ass rhythm to them. There's never much of a lull, the plot never drags, and my attention never wanders. That's much more than can be said for any Ilsa movie! And what I really love about The Big Doll House (and its sequel) is that it rewards you for watching to the end. Too many exploitation movies exploit the audience along with the subject matter, leaving us feeling like we were just drug through glass then slapped in the face for a boring ending. Hill movies leave you wanting more. I don't want to give the end of The Big Doll House away, I'll just give a hint: one girl, two machine guns. Someone give this man a round of applause.
