Wonderful character development!

Very well executed

it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Some of the most tame prisoners ever seen on film are transferred to a prison haunted by an executed man years earlier. Was the evil warden involved? Uh, yes. A young Viggo Mortensen, showing none of the talent he showcased in his later work, is some sort of hotshot prisoner. A whole lot of nothing happens, except lots of blue gels over movie lights and added smoke to make shafts of light. It's a boring and lame forgotten 80s horror entry that should stay forgotten. Doesn't even deliver requisite gore and shocks. A flatline of a movie that takes its silly premise deadly serious. You'll be hard pressed to remember anything that happened except for lots of blue.

Charles Bands' company produced a number of fine genre films from this period, including "Re-Animator", "From Beyond", and this solid and under-rated supernatural shocker.It gets a lot of power from its main location, the real life Wyoming State Prison in Rawlins, Wyoming. It adds all the atmosphere to the proceedings that it needs. The film has a very oppressive feel overall and this is the result of this locations' effectiveness.The story has a run down and old prison being reopened to accommodate an assortment of criminal types. What happened was that over 20 years previous, a condemned man had been unfairly sent to the electric chair, under the watchful eye of guard Ethan Sharpe (the late, great character actor Lane Smith, in a rare lead role). Now Sharpe is the warden of the prison and he will find that he, his staff, and the cons will all be fair game for that long ago condemned man who's now a vengeance crazed spirit. Among those caught up in the nightmare are Burke (Viggo Mortensen), a laid back car thief, Katherine Walker (Chelsea Field), a woman from the State Board with reform on the brain, and Cresus (Lincoln Kilpatrick), a veteran con.This marked the American directing debut for action and horror specialist Renny Harlin, and it definitely got him noticed, as his next film would be the fourth entry in the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series. It also provided a nifty showcase for stunt coordinator Kane Hodder, who plays the sadistic ghost; he of course would debut as Jason Voorhees in the seventh "Friday the 13th" film later the same year. The mechanical effects and the gore are both superb. The music by Richard Band and Christopher L. Stone is very appropriate throughout, and the lighting by Mac Ahlberg is extremely moody from start to finish. The movie doesn't skimp on the horror, and maintains a fever pitch at all times, working its way towards a pull-out-all-the-stops finale.The young Mortensen displays a natural sense of cool in one of his earliest roles, and Smith is wonderful as a real s.o.b. type of character. The fine cast also features such players as Tom Everett as the antsy, escape-prone Rabbitt, Ivan Kane as the personable Lasagna, Andre De Shields as the intense Sandor, Tommy "Tiny" Lister as a hulking inmate, Mickey Yablans (son of producer Irwin Yablans, who concocted the story for the film) as a young con, and Arlen Dean Snyder as the captain of the guards."Prison" is well worth checking out for die hard horror buffs eager to discover the less heralded productions from the 1980s, a decade dominated by the slasher film but which also provided us with some nifty gems like this. It's also irresistible for the chance to watch a group of young talents near the beginning of their careers.Eight out of 10.

Sometimes, more often than not, a movie's poster can make or break my enjoyment of the main feature itself. Back in 1988 when this movie came out, I kept seeing the poster advertising the movie in my local videostore, now as my love of everything revolving around Empire pictures had been in full throttle for a couple of years previous, I just knew I had to see this movie.Of course being directed by Renny Harlin and produced by Irwin Yablans, meant nothing to me at that time, I devoured every frame of the movie, and enjoyed it to the hilt, of course one of my main reasons for wanting to see the movie was because Charles Band Produced via his Empire Pictures production company.Now many many years later, I've been all to aware of the highs and lows of Renny Harlin's career(if we forget about the lows, let's remember the high that was 'The Adventures Of Ford Fairlane') and we followers of Charles Band all know what happened to Empire Pictures hence the involvement of Irwin Yablans as a co producer on this specific project.Some might say that haunted prison flicks are a dime a dozen, but back in 1988, I had never watched any, of course I've more than made up for that now, the vast majority have all skipped off into the mystic, but 'Prison' has long remained a firm favourite of mine.Having earned his directing stripes on 'Born American' director Renny Harlin honed his visual eye to great effect with many a creepy set piece, and ably assisted by a very literate script by the excellent C.Courtney Joyner(for an example of Joyner's prowess as a scriptwriter, check out 'Trancers 3 & 'Doctor Mordrid').The cast of characters whilst stock in trade, firmly uproot themselves from familiarity, and the actors involved really acquit themselves beyond all recall giving the unfolding scenario a real sense of reality, of course this all helps when they shot the movie in a real life prison somewhere in Wyoming.Special Effects supremo John Carl Beuchler adds his usual aplomb to the proceedings when it comes to the executing the special effects set pieces, somehow you can always tell when John Carl had a hand in the gruesome set pieces, one specific that comes to mind is when Larry Flash Jenkins meets his grisly demise within the confines of solitary confinement, the prop head used reminded of his character creation in the very excellent 'Cellar Dweller'.Such things of note should not diminish the finished product, because when John Carl Beuchler gets involved in any project you will always be guaranteed top quality on screen delights.When it comes to highs and lows or dare I say skeleton's in the closet, to think that Viggo Mortensen took on the starring role, I think he should be very proud of his involvement with this project.Also please note Lane Smith's involvement essaying the role of Warden Eaton Sharpe, his exchange with Chelsea Field near the beginning of the movie more or less sets the tone for the entire movie.Once again this is a classic example of when all the elements were in place, Empire Pictures really nailed the finished product.To borrow the line that Lane Smith speaks to Chelsea Field, 'Not a pleasant place to spend one's life, is it Miss Walker! If you spend eighty minutes plus of your life with this movie, you will find yourself just rewarded.In 1956 Charles Forsythe was sent to the chair.....Now he's back! with that in mind....come get some! A resounding 10 out of 10!

I pulled down a VHS box from my vast collection - many unseen - and picked out a movie, based on the box art, I thought would be fun, and yes, bad. Prison had that 80s cheesy look all over that box. I sat down and watched, and lo! and behold!, found that sometimes we do indeed sit down to a movie with preconceived expectations in mind. Fortunately, I reversed mine quickly and soon realized I was sitting down not just to an okay film but a rather good movie in total. Prison tells the story of an old, dilapidated prison being reopened to save on budgetary concerns. It looks creepy as all empty and filled with prisoners. The prison used as a set is incredibly atmospheric and easily the most important character in the film. The story using the prison as its central setting tells in a prologue of a man being killed via the electric chair. We see Lane Smith as a guard - tearing away a Crucifix before sending the man to his Maker. We then go to present day, first with a government board at a meeting deciding to open the prison and send a beautiful doctor in to make sure that conditions are acceptable as she campaigned vigorously against re-opening the old prison. Then we see the new warden, Lane Smith, haunted by a nightmare in bed - and given the new job of opening a prison he has not been to in years. Well, the rest follows suit: prisoners and guards arrive with plenty of stereotypes abounding. We are given some character depth and several of the prisoners are interesting characters. The acting is better than one might expect with Lane Smith doing as always a workmanlike job. Viggo Mortenson as a very different prisoner being solid. Tom Everett, Tiny Lister, and Ivan Kane really exploring the boundaries of their stereotypical characters. Chelsea Field is okay as the female lead. The best performance is by Lincoln Kilpatrick, an underrated character actor, as Cresus - a prisoner who had been in that very same prison years ago when the "man" had been executed" with some kind of terrible secret. Prison is not the next best thing to sliced bread or anything like that, but it is definitely worth a look and definitely better than most would expect from it. I was pleasantly surprised at the way director Renny Harlin created a story so visually atmospheric. The film has a tense, taut pace and Harlin knows how to build his scenes. There are a few excessively shot gore scenes - the one with the barbed wire was a bit much as was the one with all the pipes. But these scenes are visually creative and interesting. The acting is uniformly decent. The script actually much more cohesive than one usually gets from films like these. That may in part be credited to Irwin Yablans who wrote the story. You may remember he came up with the idea of making Halloween scary as a holiday. Here he makes incarceration a hell of a lot more scarier than it already is. Give Prison a break(get it).