Nightmare in Badham County – 1976
Director
John Llewellyn Moxey

Writer
Jo Heims

Cast
Deborah Raffin
Lynne Moody
Chuck Connors

Review by Wayne Malin

Repulsive,

Originally aired as an ABC Movie of the Week. This involves two young innocent female college students who are railroaded into a prison camp in a little Southern town. They aren’t allowed phone calls and nobody knows they’re there. What follows is rape, torture, beatings, humiliation and degradation leading to a very disturbing conclusion.

The TV version was (for its time) grim. No nudity and the beatings were pretty tame but the overall feeling of sleaziness wore one down. The unrated version is even worse–there’s plentiful nudity, the violence is extreme and, in one particularly disgusting sequence, we see a crying female prisoner forced to strip while a lesbian guard “uses” her. YUCK!

There’s nothing wrong with exploitation films but this one just goes over the brink. You get the feeling that the filmmakers enjoy having these poor women being tortured and degraded–all this is shoved in your face like you’re supposed to enjoy it. The needlessly downbeat ending doesn’t help.

I’m giving it a 3 because the acting is good–but that actually makes the movie harder to watch. A sick, sleazy film. Not recommended.