[6]

A young woman is sent to a reform school with an abusive warden and downwright evil supervisor. She tries her best to stay out of the way of her fellow inmates, including a muscle-bound hard-ass named Charlie (Wendy O. Williams). But eventually, things become too much to bear and the young woman becomes a whistle-blower for the school’s harsh living conditions.

Reform School Girls strikes an odd tone for me — it’s definitely an exploitation movie, but there wasn’t as much nudity as I was expecting. There was, surprisingly, more character and story than I was expecting. You actually start to root for the inmates and you really want to see the warden and the supervisor (played by Sybil Danning and Pat Ast, respectively) get their just desserts. Ast steals the movie. She carries it, really, because I’m not sure how good it would be without her.

For what was surely a low-budget movie, I was pleased to see the third act open up viscerally, complete with stunt fighting and pyrotechnics. Maybe my expectations are just a bit low for exploitation fare, but I’m glad writer/director Tom DeSimone took the time to make sure I would care and invest emotionally in this weird little movie. At least a little.