Jonathan Demme’s debut feature belongs to the series of women-in-prison films produced by Roger Corman: female inmates battle against tyrannical guards, who perform strange experiments on them. “When someone like Fassbinder approaches melodrama from the outside, Demme of course moves from the inside out. The measure of his promise is showcased by his successful resurrection of the waning girl gang -genre while simultaneously upholding the rebellious feminist point of view.”
Tony Rayns