Country and Year: Indonesia (1987)
Director: Ackyl Anwari
Starring: Enny Beatrice, Yenny Farida, Harry Capri, Dicky Zulkernaen
Review By: David Austin
Rating: 3 out of 4 stars (good)
Virgins from Hell kicks off in grand fashion with a veritable army of busty biker chicks in leather short-shorts whooping ass on a gambling parlor, tearing around on dirt bikes, and crashing through walls in battle jeeps adorned with skulls-and-crossbones. It’s as good as it sounds. Most people probably won’t need to know more than that to decide if this is the right movie for them.
VFH is a pure product of the ‘80s, a bastard child of the Roger Corman Filipino women-in-prison (WIP) films, and Golan and Globus’s patented low-budget Cannon cheesefests like American Ninja. Indonesian artisans added their own touches, ratcheting up the gore while combining obviously exploitative subject-matter with a demure ban against nudity. This is the kind of movie where the girls have catfights and shower together, but do it in their bathing suits.
Unlike many other Indonesian films released in the US, like The Stabilizer, Lady Terminator, Mystics in Bali, and Dangerous Seductress, VFH seems to be an entirely local production, not relying on the presence of foreign actors and actresses of dubious talent to draw foreign box office. Not to say that the indigenous talent on display is any better in a technical sense, but there’s a certain charm that is lost when the locals have to play second fiddle to some stiff import (Italian movies both prove, and break, this rule).
Virgins from Hell follows the trials and tribulations of Sheila (Enny Beatrice) and her gang of tough biker chicks, who are out to destroy the villainous Mr. Tiger (Dicky Zulkarnaen). Mr. Tiger killed Sheila’s parents in order to use their home as a base for his villainy (like so many blaxploitation villains before him). He and his scary tranny sidekick Dutch have turned the place into a fort, and are now running experiments in the basement in order to develop a potent aphrodisiac (I’m not sure that the actress playing Dutch is actually a tranny, but … damn).
Sheila, after a rousing speech, leads her mini-army in an all-out frontal assault on Mr. Tiger’s compound. Why they don’t have more of a plan must remain forever a mystery, much like the question of why Mr. Tiger would build sandbag emplacements that face onto his own fortress. After the attack fails, Sheila, her sister (Yenny Farida), and her girlfriends are left at the mercy of Mr. Tiger, who puts them to work and goes out of his way to devise baroque tortures involving rotisserie grills, barbed wire swing playsets that would make any parent cringe, and the ever-popular “Hungry Mongoose” game.
Tiring of hauling coconuts (double-entendre intended), Sheila teams up with Larry (Harry Capri), an overall-wearing, two-fisted man of science, to bring down Mr. Tiger once and for all. Natch, this requires tons of carnage and skimpy outfits.
Check for more here: Virgins From Hell: Dirt Bikes, Go-Go Boots, and Bazookas From Indonesia
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