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Schoolgirls in Chains (1973)

Dir: Donald M. Jones

Johnny (John Stoglin) is a lip-champing, broken toothed loon with a near permanent grin who bounces along in his denim dungarees. Johnny is a few slices short of a full loaf.
His brother, Frank (Gary Kent), sports huge black sunglasses that are supposed to be cool, seemingly has a way with the ladies and in between psychotic rants, likes to mumble an awful lot. And he's the brains of the two!

Johnny and Frank live with their domineering old Mother in an isolated farmhouse and like all good loonies…they like to kidnap pretty young women.
They like to keep their collection of 'pets' fresh 'n' bouncy of course and so on the day we meet them they are indeed in the process of kidnapping an unfortunate young lady to re-fresh the sexual slave pool, "The others just aren't any fun anymore" declares good ol' boy Johnny.

The new girl is thrown into the cellar where she meets the two current 'guests', a girl named Ginger who's been there about 2 weeks and another named Stevie who's been there for about 2 months and is now very sick and rather mad, "Wait till you meet Momma, then you'll be sorry you came here…"

What now for our unfortunate victims? Probably nothing good as here comes Johnny, and Johnny sure likes to 'play games' with his pets…Oh dear……

Ahhhhh…the beauty of the Exploitation business!
Despite the film's title (it's also known under the tamer "Abducted" and "Let's Play Dead" monikers), if we go by the obvious age of the actresses, none of these victims are in anyway schoolgirls and although one of the later key targets is supposed to a student (who's shagging her teacher!), it's obvious that the old Exploitation marketing staple of 'that title sounds groovy, lets use it' is well and truly in place here.

The first thing we notice is the bizarre Josef Powell penned score (he also did the vocals) which is made up of weird little tuneless ditties ("Run! Ruuuun! Run! Ruuuuuun!" the vocal's screech as a victim does just that) easy listening Jazz with sax and trumpets and out of tune piano thumping.
It's one of the most unusual and just plain crazy scores in Exploitation history and somehow it works.

As with all 'psycho cinema' the said psycho's should be the highlights. And sure enough that rule is followed here.
Johnny is a classic 'backroads hick'. The quintessential grinning loon with a mind full of dirty thoughts and slumbering violence.
His pained delight when 'playtime' arrives makes for some great moments "C'mon! I wanna play now! I wanna play Doctor"!
'Doctor' involves poor Ginger being made to open her top and having Johnny listen to her chest through a bent coat hanger (!) before having a syringe stuck into her bare arse. All accompanied to a very weird and warped version of "3 blind Mice".
And you can't help but warm to a guy who tries to impress the girls by hanging from tree branches, grinning madly, before giving the trunk a big hug!

Frank is less interesting, but has some fun screeching breakdowns when his cheesy 'Mister Cool' image slips. Best example of this is when he looses it with Ginger (who has been brought to him on a chained leash) and we are given a pretty nasty, full frontal nudity, assault sequence "You've only got one thing on your mind! You're just like Mamma said you were"!

Momma herself sits in a rocking chair, wrapped in a shawl, in an attic room for most of the film, "Ahhh...It's good to have two fine boys", and is seen only from behind or in low light.
But 'her boys' are obviously in awe of her. A black comic dialogue treat comes when a desperate Johnny wants another girl to add to his collection. "If I let you have another one Johnny, will you promise to take better care of it"!
The best scene concerning Momma comes via a flashback where we not only learn Frank was once going to marry, but that he used to have sex with his dear old Ma!
Momma thinks Frank's girlfriend is no good (as Momma likes to have her boys all to herself!) and when Franks brings her home Ma gets right down to driving her off by getting Frank to rub her aching chest (indeed!) in front of her and telling the girl some home truths, "You do know he still wets the bed"? and drops the bombshell that Frank and her are lovers "We make love like two lovers"!
Needless to say you can't see the girlfriend for the dust she makes getting the hell out of there!

The acting ranges from camp fun (Johnny) to wooden dullness (the teacher boyfriend of a would be target) to a few actually well judged turns where the victims are concerned, especially the actress playing Ginger.

Cinematography is pretty nondescript but there are a few interesting if odd touches, like when the camera turns upside down during a chase sequence, and there are some good ideas lodged in the general blandness of the set-up and direction.
One is a wonderfully effective and well crafted sequence, that involves a train thundering past the camera in front of a body dangling from a barbed wire fence, that hints at the fact some skill is behind the camera when it makes itself known.

Exploitation wise we have the initial grimy idea of course about girls kidnapped and flung into a cellar (with the odd strategically placed rat) to be used as sex toys, but also we are treated to some smatterings of topless nudity and the one aforementioned assault sequence featuring full frontal shots.
But there is a noticeable lack of bloodletting or even violence, outside of the obvious sexually violent central idea, on display.

Overall then "Schoolgirls in Chains" is a pretty much forgotten Drive-In/Grindhouse effort that sadly never reaches the levels it's over the top title would have you believe. There is a most definite lack of pace and energy to the proceedings.
Despite similar set-ups, "Schoolgirls" has no scenes which contain anything like the manic, deranged brutality of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (which would appear a year later) and the farmhouse lacks any grotesque character, looking instead rather normal and very neat and clean. There is basically nothing seen in the film, technically or artistically, that matches the nasty central idea of the script.
The finale is also less than thrilling, as if writer/director Jones suddenly felt the movie should be a more 'worthy' effort, and a twist revelation is actually rather confused unless both concerned parties were involved in it.
This is a movie which totally relies on the fun dialogue, camp characters and the odd dash of sleaze to carry it along…take these away and the film would simply sit there and die.

Luckily though we have just enough of the above (essential) ingredients to still make "Schoolgirls in Chains" worth adding to your Grindhouse/Exploitation collection for curiosity's sake alone.
And hey, it's got topless leapfrog in it!