From my favorite movies..

Disturbing yet enthralling

disgusting, overrated, pointless

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Linda Blair has stated that she was sold this film as a "female Midnight Express." Yes, it has elements of that. But it's more like an adult remake of Born Innocent. Linda's character even has the same name, Chris. Born Innocent represents Linda's best work as a juvenile. Her performance is better in Born Innocent than in The Exorcist. Red Heat may well be her best performance as an adult. Yet this is one of the most difficult Blair films to find. I don't think it ever got a proper theatrical release in the United States, although it may have played the grind house circuit. I first saw in on VHS year ago, and watched it recently again on YouTube. It's a wildly entertaining film that's face-paced and got it all - nudity, rape, cat fights, shower scenes, suicide, etc. You've seen it all before, but the setting in an East German prison before the wall came down (actually filmed in Hungary) adds a great deal to the mood and tone of the film. For Linda Blair fans, this film is essential. For fans of women in prison flicks, it's not to be missed.

Women-in-prison flick involving an innocent American tourist in West Germany who is mistaken for a spy, grilled until exhaustion sets in, and sent to jail without a word to her soldier-fiancé. After publicly nixing her hit "Chained Heat" on just about every talk show of the 1980s, it's amazing that star Linda Blair would even think of doing another jailhouse underachiever. This one, filmed in chilly blues and grays, is just as seedy and depressing. The roster comes complete with a decadently lascivious guard (gaunt, kinky Sylvia Kristel), a terrified blonde, a friendly butch, and lots of malicious broads. Blair manages (somehow) to keep her dignity and has a few strong scenes, including being interrogated and collapsing under pressure or standing up to the review board with a firm "F*** you!" The direction is fairly tight, and the movie is engrossing almost in spite of itself. *1/2 from ****

Not quite, but close! Linda Blair has proved again and again that she shares a rare quality with Mark Hamill, the ability to attach herself to one cinematic landmark and follow it with an entire career of complete trash. I saw RED HEAT on TV when I was about 11. Perhaps I was too young to understand this film's more basic appeal at that time, what I did get from it was that women in prison do crazy things to each other. Was there a plot beyond that? I'm not sure. There's something about an escape attempt but it isn't very clear. RED HEAT can really be best described as crap. It doesn't even succeed at that fun/pathetic B-movie level. The picture is alternately boring and confusing. The ending is about as clear as a muddy ditch and a lot less satisfying. I'd comment on Blair's performance if she'd actually given one. RED HEAT is a forgettable, exploitive little thing that should have been made by someone who understood the genre. I give it no stars.

Linda Blair gets mistaken for someone else and she and another woman are thrown into a brutal german prison where she has no rights now. Sylvia Kristel plays the leader of the in for life inmates and she torments others until Blair cannot stand it and fights her. Blair doesn't know that her fiancee and his friends are planning to break her out but they better do it quick before angry Kristel gets to her first. Pretty good with a good score by Tangerine Dream.