Sadomanía (el infierno de la pasión) (1981)

Director: Jesús Franco
Stars: Ajita Wilson, Andrea Guzon, Ursula Buchfellner

In all the annals of exploitation cinema, there has never been anything quite like it: Take a luscious young bride (beautiful Playboy centerfold Ursula Fellner) thrust into a brutal prison camp by a sadistic woman warden (the stunning transsexual adult film star Ajita Wilson). Add generous helpings of lesbian lust, bestial perversion and some very extreme violence. Then mix in a jaw-dropping performance by the film's controversial director as a degenerate white slaver. Do you dare take a forbidden taste of the wildest women-in-prison movie ever made?

Banned outright in the UK and available only in heavily censored versions in America, Sadomania is the sicko epic that could only come from the mind of Jess Franco (Eugenie, Marquis De Sade's Justine). Blue Underground has unearthed pristine elements from various international sources to create this definitive uncut edition, fully restoring all of its vicious violence and long-rumored scenes of horrific sexual depravity, and now featuring all-new extras that include a no-holds barred interview with Jess Franco himself!


Also Known As: Hellhole Women (1981) (imdb title)

Jess Franco, the most prolific director in the Eurocult world, has helmed a few women in prison epics in his time. Love Camp, Women In Cellblock 9, Women Behind Bars, Ilsa The Wicked Warden and Barbed Wire Dolls all stand out as solid entries in one of the sleaziest sub-genres of exploitation filmmaking. And then there’s Sadomania.

×

Sadomanía (el infierno de la pasión) (1981)

Close

There’s nothing here we haven’t seen time and time again in regards to the actual storyline. It’s pretty standard ‘chicks in chains’ stuff. Olga (the lovely Uta Koepke) and her beau, Michael, are out for a drive one sunny day in Spain, and after making a wrong turn, end up in captivity courtesy of a Warden named Magda Urtado (the Nude Princess herself, Ajita Wilson). She detains them for trespassing and Michael manages to get free, she throws Olga in the slammer along with a host of other inmates, all women wearing nothing but cut off jean shorts.

×

Sadomanía (el infierno de la pasión) (1981)

Close

While in jail, Olga finds that Governor Mendoz (a very mustachioed Robert Foster) is selecting the odd inmate to come back to his place so that his wife can get it on with her in hopes that the Governor will become aroused enough to get it up and impregnate his wife who desperately wants a baby. Once his wife is done with them, she sells them to a slave trader (played in the most cliché way one can possibly play a homosexual man by the director himself, Jess Franco) who runs a whorehouse and allows his women to be abused and mistreated in any way his paying customers choose.

×

Sadomanía (el infierno de la pasión) (1981)

Close

Eventually, Michael busts back in and tries to save his beloved Olga, but it’s not going to be as easy as he thinks and he ends up on the wrong side of the Warden, who subjects him to her own special kind of punishment.

The flimsy plot is held together by a succession of depraved scenes of sex, violence, sexual violence, bestiality, lesbianism, rape, torture, and all around nastiness. It’s almost as if the storyline exists simply to propel the more base aspects of the film and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the film was simply constructed around these scenes.

×

Sadomanía (el infierno de la pasión) (1981)

Close

Franco has said that his inspiration for the film was the infamous Italian comic books (which featured much more extreme violent and sexual situations than your average Marvel or DC superhero comic), and he does do a good job of bringing that ‘feel’ to life on the screen. If you’re at all familiar with the Fumetti that inspired him, you’ll know that everything is highly exaggerated, especially the exploitative elements that are so prevalent in the film.

×

Sadomanía (el infierno de la pasión) (1981)

Close

The presence of the enigmatic Ajita Wilson (a transsexual adult film star supposedly born George Wilson who died in a car wreck in 1987) adds an otherworldly feel to the film and she plays her part of the evil warden very well. Her bright eyes sparkle with glee when she gets into character and is convincing in her role as someone who enjoys the pain that she inflicts on others.

×

Sadomanía (el infierno de la pasión) (1981)

Close

The rest of the cast are more or less eye candy and the majority of people we actually see on screen are naked, or nearly naked, women. The inmates are never fully clothed even when swinging a pick axe or working in the sun.

Overall, if you’re looking for a women in prison film with a slightly meaner spirit and some honestly shocking scenes of depravity and don’t mind the fact that there’s really not much of a story, Sadomania is your bag. If you’re looking for the visual poetry Franco has conjured up in some of his more cerebral works such as Doriana Grey or Eugenie, well you won’t really find much of that here. It’s simply an exploitation picture, albeit a good one.

×

Sadomanía (el infierno de la pasión) (1981)

Close

The inclusion of footage not seen on the Dutch DVD, Sadomania makes a nice addition to the WIP/Franco collector in your home. While it would have been nice to have seen the audio and video handled a little better, Blue Underground has presented some nice extra features and a more complete version of the film than what was previously readily available.

Rock! Shock! Pop!

Special Features:
- "Sadomaniac": Interview with director/co-writer Jess Franco (18 min - in French, with English subtitles)
- 2 theatrical trailers (US and Spanish)
- Poster and still gallery
- Cast & crew filmographies and biographies

Note! Sadomania is presented here in its English dub with select scenes (which were never dubbed into English in the first place) presented in Spanish with removable English subtitles.