Jailbait (2014)
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Starring Sara Malakul Lane, Steve Hanks, Jennifer Robyn Jacobs, Erin O’Brien, Samantha Cardon
Directed by Jared Cohn
Jailbait is about a demure teenage girl who I think was supposed to be jailbait in the underage sense who becomes actual jailbait when she gets sent to a California women’s prison/estrogen-fueled hellhole for killing the creepy stepfather that had been molesting her. If the actual age of the lead character was specified, I must have missed it. Looking at her, I’d guess actress Sara Malakul Lane’s own “jailbait” status expired a while back, as evidenced by her very womanly body, which is on full display so often I began wondering if this was a clothing-optional prison.
Much as I’m not entirely certain what definition of “jailbait” the title alludes to, I’m also a little befuddled as to the “In the Vein of Orange Is the New Black” tagline The Asylum slapped on the artwork. They do realize that “Orange Is the New Black” is a comedy with dramatic elements, right? Jailbait is more like 12 Years a Reform School Girl.
You know the horrible stories you hear about women’s prisons? They’re all here.
And that’s just in the first half-hour!
From a timeline standpoint, I believe all of the above happened within this girl’s first few days in prison. It does not get better for her from there.
Even when something good happens to her, like getting to show off her cello-playing skills in the prison talent show, this also leads to a violent maiming.
So many terrible things befall this poor girl as she serves hard time for what should have been an open and shut case of justifiable homicide, it gets to be a bit comical after a while. About the only good thing going for her is that she’s probably the cleanliest girl in lockup considering the number of showers she takes.
It needs to be said that we just don’t get that many women-in-prison flicks these days, and when we do, they have a tendency to lean too heavily towards tongue-in-cheek camp. This WIP entry plays every bit of it straight even as it tosses out nearly every salacious trope a film of this subgenre can short of a prison riot. By making a very hard-R gritty thriller that fully delivers the b-movie exploitation elements the subgenre is infamous for, a scuzzy grindhouse vibe manifests that elevates the entertainment value.
I guess I just come from the point-of-view that if you’re making a sensationalistic WIP b-movie and it doesn’t make viewers feel a little grimy and grungy even as it tries to titillate them, you’re not doing it right. Jailbait doesn’t do everything right, but it does enough to make it worth doing time with.
3 out of 5
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