Overview
Chained Heat (known as Das Frauenlager in West Germany) is a 1983 women-in-prison film, co-written and directed by Paul Nicholas for Jensen Farley Pictures. The film was produced by Paul Fine, who had previously produced The Concrete Jungle.
Plot
The film takes place in the California women's prison in which naïve teenager Carol Henderson is sentenced to serve 18 months for accidentally killing a man. Warden Ernie Backman has a hot tub in his office; his assistant, Captain Taylor controls the prison's prostitutes and has a lover, Lester, who is also involved in a clandestine affair with Ericka, the leader of the white prisoners, while the black prisoners are led by Duchess. Eventually the administration pushes the prisoners too far and they drop their race-based feuding to revolt against their common enemy.
Production and release
Chained Heat was produced for $950,000. It opened on May 27, 1983 in 404 theaters nationwide and made $2,252,682 in its opening weekend. The film was in theaters for two and a half weeks in total. , the film's domestic gross is $6,149,983.
Reception
During its release the film came under fire from critics for its sexism and from gay rights activists for negative and stereotypical portrayals of lesbians as violent and predatory. A Variety review described it as "silly, almost campy" and judged Paul Nicholas to have "display ed little feel for the prison genre, emphasizing archaic sex-for-voyeurs scenes". The film was nominated for two Golden Raspberry Awards including Worst Actress for Linda Blair and won Worst Supporting Actress for Sybil Danning at the 4th Golden Raspberry Awards for her performances in this film and Hercules. Chained Heat (uncut and remastered edition) was released in 2011 in a "Women in Prison" DVD box set with Red Heat (1985) and Jungle Warriors (1984).
Sequels
In 1993, the sequel Chained Heat II, starring Brigitte Nielsen, Paul Koslo, Kimberley Kates and Kari Whitman was released. The film was directed by Lloyd A. Simandl and released in Canada. This was followed by the 1998 release of Chained Heat 3: Hell Mountain. The film stars Nicole Nieth, Kate Rodgers, and Bentley Mitchum and was directed by Mike Rhol from a screenplay by Chris Hyde. Both sequels bear little to no relation to the first film.