Verdict
Summary
An in-your-face exploitation action movie with way more than the average amount of nudity and gratuitous torture, Troma’s Lust for Freedom has no business being as fun as it ends up being, likely due to the fact that it somehow retains a lurid pulpy men’s adventure novel quality that squeezes as much juice out of its core as it possibly can.
Plot:
A female cop is wrongfully arrested on a desert highway and wrongfully incarcerated in an all-women’s prison.
Review:
After a drug bust goes horribly wrong for undercover cop Gillian Kaites (Melanie Coll), she packs her things and goes on an aimless road trip. She ends up somewhere on a desert highway where she finds herself in the crosshairs of a super shady operation run by evil Sheriff Coale (William J. Kulzer) and a vile warden of a local women’s prison who have teamed up to entrap and ensnare pretty young women on the highway by planting “evidence” after the fact each time they arrest them, with the intention of throwing them all into the prison. What’s the objective here? It seems there might be an illegal black market operation going on concerning the organ trade (it’s not explicitly detailed, but hinted at), and of course all of the disgusting guards and henchmen at the prison are horny men looking to rape and degrade all the new fish. There’s the rage-filled lesbian guard Ms. Pusker (Judi Trevor, truly despicable) as well, and when Gillian is drugged and thrown into prison without a trial or a reason, she becomes Pusker’s new special interest. When the warden and the sheriff eventually realize that Gillian is a cop, they decide to kill her, but Gillian is no pushover and will plan her escape along with another inmate, and when they finally get their chance, their lust for freedom will prevail!
An in-your-face exploitation action movie with way more than the average amount of nudity and gratuitous torture, Troma’s Lust for Freedom has no business being as fun as it ends up being, likely due to the fact that it somehow retains a lurid pulpy men’s adventure novel quality that squeezes as much juice out of its core as it possibly can. There’s almost nonstop male-gaze full frontal nudity and violence here, but there’s still always a hint of humor to it that the ladies in the cast seem privy to. It’s as trashy as these kinds of movies come, and that should be a shameful thing … except it’s not. It’s fun, and the soundtrack has a couple of heavy metal songs by Grim Reaper, including a theme song (which can be found on their 1987 album “Rock You to Hell,” and the film is greatly benefitted by the badass tunes. What can I say? I guess I’m this movie’s audience. From director Eric Louzil.
Troma’s brand new Blu-ray release of Lust for Freedom does all the previous editions better. I own Vinegar Syndrome’s previous DVD release (which was solid too, but now out of print), but I prefer this release with all its bonus features and high quality high definition transfer. There’s a director’s commentary, plus a bunch of the usual junk Troma’s releases offer like Lloyd Kaufman’s useless and irreverent introductions, etc.
