Hellhole on AllMovie

It's hard to be critical of an exploitation film that revels so gleefully in its awfulness. To begin with, we're presented with dazed, glassy-eyed heroine Judy Landers, whose condition is readily explained by a bout with amnesia brought on by the brutal murder of her mother at the hands of a sleazy villain, Ray Sharkey. She is sent to the prison-like Ashland Mental Hospital for therapy, at first blissfully unaware of the diabolical mind experiments being performed on the all-female patients in the title dungeon by leering mad doctor Mary Woronov (who's done more than her share of leering in films of this type). Sharkey's not out of the picture -- he's lurking about the grounds, hoping to wring some secrets from our heroine about the documents he tried to obtain from her poor mom. The usual women-in-prison accouterments abound, from glue-sniffing lesbians to lecherous guards. The exploitation elements seem somewhat restrained (Landers doesn't even get her hair mussed) and they make the film look more like a sleazy made-for-TV movie with a few nude scenes thrown in for spice.