Chip off the Old Cell Block

Shoestring opus revives the caged-heat genre

Comments (0) By M.V. Moorhead Thursday, Dec 3 2009

The women’s-prison picture, that favorite of drive-in, grindhouse, and lonely guy at the video store, breaks loose again with Sugar Boxx. Cody Jarrett’s loving homage to such steamy cellblock sagas as Black Mama, White Mama and The Big Bird Cage is packed with all the catfights, gunfights, trash talk, Sapphic yearnings, sweltering swamps, scheming wardens, leering cracker lawmen, and other lewd and lurid thrills the genre demands.

More About

Geneviere Anderson (CSI: Miami) stars as a reporter who goes undercover as a prisoner at Sugar State Penitentiary and gets more than she bargained for. After her Jackie Brown comeback, the great Pam Grier was presumably out of director Jarrett’s budgetary reach, but he did manage to stud the supporting cast of his shoestring opus with the likes of Russ Meyer alumnae Tura Satana and Kitten Natividad, Hollywood veteran Jacqueline Scott, and celebrated exploitation writer-producer-director Jack Hill.

Jarrett and stars Anderson and The’la “Rain” Brown are scheduled to be in attendance for the screening.

Sat., Dec. 5, 8 p.m., 2009