It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Blistering performances.

It's quite entertaining. I first discovered it in college, and my gay roommate and I found Pat Ast to be one of the most undiscovered comedic gems of the decade in it. The fantastic lines in this film come one after the other, and almost twenty years later, I still quote it. The usual B-movie WiP tropes abound, with Wendy O. Williams adding just the right amount of wrong. Nothing is terribly salacious, frankly, so if you're looking for a lot of naked women in lingerie giving each other sponge baths, you're not going to find it here, although there is plenty of just plain naked, but if you want some genuine action scenes, a lot of cursing, and some acting that will entertain you, along with some of the cleverest dialogue you will hear in a crappy movie, you will not be disappointed. You can enjoy this film with a clear conscience. It certainly delivers entertainment. PS--TINY SPOILER--there is one scene where a kitten meets an unfortunate end but you don't see anything on camera. It definitely has impact.

Our fellow travellers at New World Pictures released many a b-classic in their day, such as 'Vamp', 'House', and 'Heathers' to name but a few, but with 'Reform School Girls' they really go all out. They've taken the old "women's prison" cliché and essentially perfected it with this parody-homage hybrid.Linda Carol plays Jenny, a hot teen shipped off by the state to a deteriorating (is there any other kind?) reform school, headed by Ilsa-like Warden Sutter (Sybil Danning) and watched over by the hilariously evil and over-the-top matron, Edna (Pat Ast), who does a terrific job making you absolutely despise her. A state-appointed psychologist (Charlotte McGinnis) becomes concerned by Edna's treatment of the girls, not to mention the occasional "suicide" this treatment produces. As the doctor struggles to get the ever-impotent state to step in, the girls take matters into their own hands and the film culminates in a violent, bloody, punk rock showdown between the broads and the guards.The cast is excellent. You have the usual prison inmate clichés (neccesary for any great women's prison flick) but the actresses are all top notch. Late-great Wendy O. Williams (of punk band The Plasmatics) is AWESOME as 'Charlie', the sadistic cellblock sister with her own gang (beautiful 'Friday the 13th' series alumns Tiffany Helm and Darcy DeMoss), but she is SO wired, SO bad-ass, SO insane, and SO rarely wearing much clothing, that she adds a whole new dimension to an otherwise predictable character. Not to mention the fact that, although she looks great, she's well past reform school age (don't suffer the delusion that this wasn't intentional).Also, Sherri Stoner creates a very sympathetic character as 'Lisa', a sweet, innocent, naive, but also traumatized and neurotic girl who's been shipped from place to place and suffers the most abuse from Edna. You can predict poor Lisa cracking pretty much from the opening credits, but director Tom DeSimone does a GREAT job of building it up and he doesn't cop out. Kitten and stuffed animal lovers beware.Some great 80's punk tracks fuel the reform school fights and riots. There are several shower sequences (and lotsa' boobies), some great b-movie humor, good cinematography and DeSimone keeps it all going at a quick pace... If you're not picking your jaw up off the floor after watching Wendy, in a rage, smash her face through the windshield of speeding truck, then climb onto the top of it to do a brief, spastic, punk rock grease dance, and THEN jump off before it hits its target, consult a physician immediately.Anyway, I give this a ten because not only is it a great, hella-entertaining film by itself, but I'd put it at the number one spot in the women's prison sub-genre (even though it TECHNICALLY does not take place in a women's prison).

Neither a serious WIP drama, like director Tom De Simone's earlier "The Concrete Jungle", nor an outright spoof of the genre in the style of "Naked Gun", "Reform School Girls" is a film that suffers from identity crisis. The serious, sometimes even cruel moments offset the comedy, and the over-the-top moments undermine the seriousness. For a film categorized by Leonard Maltin as a spoof, it's quite astonishing how few not only laughs, but even attempts at comedy this one really contains. It's not a total loss: rocker Wendy O. Williams (who also sings on the soundtrack) has an incredible, ROCKING 37-year-old body which she proudly displays throughout (RIP Wendy), and there is some nice girl vs. girl wrestling. But Sybil Danning, the big "name" of the film, is COMPLETELY wasted - if you're thinking of seeing this for her, forget it. (*1/2)

Myself and a mate promptly decided to watch "Reform School Girls" upon seeing the trailer that advised all intellectual viewers – and I quote – to keep their criticism for themselves...or else we'll nail your tongues to the floor. Subsequently the trailer showed a lot of footage of attractive girls showering and guaranteed there was plenty more where that came from. And they're right, too! This greatest trailer ever also perfectly captures the tone of the film, as it's a demented tongue-in-cheek bad girls penitentiary exploitation flick that definitely shouldn't be taken too seriously. My best guess would be that writer/director Tom DeSimone is a pleasantly deranged and sleaze-obsessed guy that single-handedly wanted to bring homage to all "Women in Prison" movies at once. The lead warden (played by no one less than Sybil Danning) looks an awful lot like Dyanne Thorne when she gave image to Ilsa, the She Wolf of the SS and several of the other supportive characters appear to be pure stereotypes as well. There's the sadistic, corpulent and massively lesbian guard, the kinky S&M leader of the dorm (that looks about three times as old as the other inmates), the vulnerable who shouldn't be there and – of course – the tough black chicks. There's only one man popping up in the film and naturally he's a legitimate bastard. Tons of nudity and outrageous cat-fights make this a very textbook example of politically incorrect 80's exploitation, but it sure it a lot of fun to watch. Only the Italian directors deliver movies of this kind that are even better.