One of the all-time great exploitation film titles is sadly attached to a film that never even tries to live up to it (its director wanted to call it the more prosaic Beyond the Gate). By the title alone, one assumes, Gregory Goodell’s lightweight woman-in-prison film made it to the second division of the UK’s “video nasties” list and although the theme of the film is pretty unsavoury, there’s kittle here to warrant such a fate. There are some sexual moments and some strong language but otherwise, it has the feel of a tougher-than-usual made-for-television film – and it was on the small screen that Goodell ended up after this.

Country singer Rachel Foster (Linda Haynes) is travelling alone around the States, picking up gigs as and where she can find them. In a small town, she rebuffs lecherous bar owner Mat Tibbs (Aldo Ray) and desperate to get away, crashes her car when someone runs out in front of her. Looking for help in a nearby rundown house, she stumble son the aftermath of a brutal mass murder perpetrated by a young boy and is arrested for the crime. Thanks to the machinations of Tibbs’ brother, the local sheriff (Jackie Coogan), she ends up in a women’s prison where she’s placed in the hands of the sinister psychiatrist Doctor Hans R. Kline (Geoffrey Lewis) and subjected to his radical techniques for “curing” criminality. She’s effectively brainwashed, her identity stolen from and she’s “reinvented” as Sarah Jean Walker. But she’s still under the control of Kline who tries to use her as a weapon in his power struggle with the equally nasty warden (Mercedes Shirley) – is Rachel now gone for good or is she still in there ready to can she re-emerge?

Linda Haynes pretty much carries the whole film is pretty good, certainly good enough to take home the best actress award from the 1981 Sitges Film Festival for her performance. The film came near the end of her short film career that had started in 1965 with an uncredited turn in spy spoof In Like Flint, took in appearances in Coffy (1973), The Drowning Pool (1975) and Rolling Thunder (1977) among others, and ended in 1980 when she decided that she’d had enough of exploitation film-making, went into rehab to help her overcome her alcohol dependency and depression and went on to live a quiet life in Florida working as a legal assistant. Lewis runs her a close second in a nasty role as the cruel, even sadistic psychiatrist with his mad schemes for apparently rehabilitating criminals.

Without them, Human Experiments would have been something of an ordeal. As it is, it’s a bit dull and drab and would, without the come-on title, very likely have vanished into well-deserved obscurity. Only in the last 20 minutes or so does it really come to life and the ending – in which Rachel resumes her singing career but using her Sarah Jean identity – should have been disturbing but just comes across as a bit flat. Cinematographer João Fernandes (later of The Nesting (1981), Children of the Corn (1984) (as Raoul Lomas), Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1983) et al) ensures that the film looks good, but Goodell, making his debut here, is too well mannered for this sort of thing and refuses to go as far as the premise would allow, leaving us with a curiously tame exploitation film. All the elements are there for something completely nuts – brainwashing, women in prison, manipulation, loss of identity – but it feels almost polite, certainly rarely confrontational and in the end just boring.

Human Experiments was distributed in the States by Essex Distributing, the only non-porn title they ever handled which, for anyone in the know, would have again raised expectations for a film that were to be cruelly dashed (before his mainstream career, Fernandes, usually using the pseudonym Harry Flecks, shot Deep Throat (1972), The Devil in Miss Jones (1973), Memories Within Miss Aggie (1974) and porn director Gerard Damiano’s horror film Legacy of Satan (1974)). Everything about it suggested that it was going to be far more unpleasant than it actually turns out to be and it’s no surprise at all that his subsequent, very brief, directing career was spent entirely in television. That would have been a relief to many perhaps, but for a hardened horror/exploitation fan, it was a let-down. As it moves into its final act, Human Experiments comes closest to fulfilling expectations. See it for Haynes’ excellent performance and last 20 minutes or so, but keep those expectations suitably tempered.