“You should have seen look on that bastard’s face when I shot him between the legs! But you know, he’ll never miss ‘em – he never had any to begin with!”

After watching Virgins from Hell, I’m firmly convinced that this Indonesian exploitation title is one of the greatest films ever made. But you know, I’m given to making ridiculous statements like that, so I’ll give you a rundown of the goings-on in the movie, and you can decide for yourself. The Virgins from Hell are an all-female motorcycle gang who dress like aerobics instructors circa 1985 and wage war against drug kingpin Mr. Tiger (Dicky Zulkarnaen, the Indonesian Billy Drago). Tiger, it seems, murdered the parents of #1 Virgin Sheila (Enny Beatrice) and took their palatial home as his own fortress of evil, and now Sheila and the rest of the Virgins carry out fully armed commando strikes against his holdings, which include a gambling den which gets thoroughly demolished before the opening titles. Flush with success, Sheila rallies the rest of the Virgins to strike at the heart of Tiger’s empire and re-take her home, but the plan goes south and the whole gang is captured. Once locked away, the film takes a direct offramp onto the Women in Prison highway, with Tiger subjecting the girls to unspeakable tortures (one gal gets roasted over a spit like a pig at a luau, and another is tossed into a bag with a live mongoose) and using them as guinea pigs to perfect his super drug – an atomic Spanish Fly of sorts that will allow Tiger to corner the “aphrodisiac market.” With all this going on, plus regular rape and abuse from Tiger’s brutish henchmen (not to mention the boss man himself, who’s partial to whip torture and pouring wine over helpless women), the Virgins start to come apart at the seams, and we’re treated to at least three knockdown, drag-out cat fights, including one in a pool of filthy water. But then fellow captive and medical student Larry (Harry Capri), who, it should be noted, is also a martial arts expert, daredevil motorcyclist, and ace marksman, rallies the Virgins to fight against their captors and bring down Mr. Tiger’s… aphrodisiac business. Yeah, aphrodisiacs, which doesn’t seem all that awful, but Tiger is definitely a bad man, what with the whips and the wine and the mongoose (and let’s not forget Sheila’s parents…), so it’s only fair that the whole thing comes down to a battle royale in the finale, full of flying motorcycles, exploding guard towers, rocket launchers, machine guns, chicks with rocket launchers and machine guns, the works. If that’s not entertainment with a capital E, then brother, you may have stumbled on to the wrong site.

A term for Asian movies that whip together disparate elements into one heady mix is “masala,” which is borrowed from the Indian model of tossing together singing, action, romance, and countless other genres into a single picture. I don’t have the foggiest clue what they eat in Indonesia, but the masala on display in Virgins from Hell is almost too rich to eat at one sitting. Everything in the film is delivered at a fever pitch, from the costumes (in addition to the Virgins, Mr. Tiger is particular to gaucho outfits and brightly colored pantsuits) to the tortures and action (why blow up one guard tower when you can destroy three?). Even the most stereotypical role is exaggerated to a level that transcends comic book and becomes almost pharmaceutically surreal – the standard issue predatory-lesbian guard (here named Dutch) is a king-sized mammer jammer who gives a sleeping Sheila a full body tongue bath. Add to that a thick coating of Indonesian cultural peculiarities, like the scene in which a local medicine man uses a snake to extract a bullet lodged in Larry’s leg (he pushes the reptile into the wound, and it pops out with the round in its mouth… honest), and what you’ve got is nothing short of jaw-dropping. Virgins from Hell may not be as explicit as other Women in Prison movies (despite plenty of hands-all-over maulings and one weird, implied doggy-style rape, there’s not a bit of nudity, or even kissing – Larry gives Sheila a grandfatherly peck on the cheek at the close-out), but it’s definitely bizarre and packed with more berserk action than most of what passes for low-budget genre pictures of late, so really, you’re only hurting yourself if you don’t check it out.

Virgins from Hell is a Mondo Macabro DVD release, and if you’re familiar with that company’s catalog at all, you know that they go the extra mile and then some to showcase their obscure movie finds in the best and most well-annotated way possible. And in the case of this title, they’ve gone way past the call of cult film duty by presenting it in a double disc set that serves as an excellent introduction and primer to the weird world of Indonesian exploitation. The first disc serves up the film in a beautiful anamorphic transfer; it’s dubbed into English with no subtitle options, but unless you’re a complete stick in the mud, that won’t bother you. Disc Two features a 25-minute documentary presents a short history of Indonesian exploitation from the ‘70s to the present, with lots of eye-popping clips from movies like Mystics in Bali, Dangerous Seductress, and Lady Terminator (all of which, it should be mentioned are available from Mondo Macabro) and interviews with local directors and distributors. The second disc is rounded out by an incredible 70-minute barrage of trailers of films from Virgins’ distributors, Rapi Films, and if you’ve never seen an Indonesian exploitation picture, you’re gonna be begging for one after you check out this trailer gallery. See Indonesian superstar Barry Prima slice guys in half in mid-air and lop off the heads of ratty-costumed crocodile men; get an eyeful of Balinese versions of The Exorcist and The Evil Dead; and if Virgins left you with a hankering for more Asian ladies in peril, you’ll be happy to see a preview for Escape from Hellhole, which looks as over-the-top as Virgins, but minus the leotards. And if you feel like reading (that’s something you can do with your eyes instead of watching movies, believe it or not), there’s also an excellent history of the Women in Prison genre from author and Mondo Macabro headman Pete Tombs, which features lots of priceless promotional art, including an Indian newspaper ad for Virgins that’s crowned with the no-messin’-around tag line, “Women are Raped! Women are Killed!” Yikes – well, let’s not dwell on that. Anyway, if you’ve always heard that Indonesia was the lost treasure trove of cinematic trash, but could never track down any of its elusive titles, your sleaze dreams have been answered with Virgins from Hell. _____________________________________________________

- Paul Gaita