One would think that putting Linda Blair (from "Chained Heat") and Sylvia Kristol (from "Emmanuelle") together in a women-in-prison flick would equal a great movie, or at least an entertaining heap of rubbish. Alas, no such luck. Blair plays the wrongfully-accused innocent well enough, and Kristol puts in a convincing performance as the prison's top bully, but both performances lack the necessary nuances - the good girl has to have an inner reserve of strength to help her survive the harsh prison, while the bully must occasionally show a seductive side. Absent those elements, what you get is an hour or so in which Kristol snarls and glowers and Blair whines. Even the obligatory cat-fight is botched, thanks to extremely poor lighting and ridiculously incompetent editing - apparently, someone believed that the spectacle of Blair and Kristol beating the crap out of each other was the LAST thing that anyone wanted to see.
Of course, "Red Heat" has a bigger problem than the under-exploitation of its two main attractions: it's dreary as hell. There's the obligatory shower scenes and the lesbianism, but far more attention is paid to the less exciting indignities of life in an East German prison. True, it's more realistic, but does anyone really go to a women-in-prison movie to see realism?
Of course, "Red Heat" has a bigger problem than the under-exploitation of its two main attractions: it's dreary as hell. There's the obligatory shower scenes and the lesbianism, but far more attention is paid to the less exciting indignities of life in an East German prison. True, it's more realistic, but does anyone really go to a women-in-prison movie to see realism?