Some recent reviews on this forum prompted me to go back and revisit Mood Pictures, a company that features real whipping, real caning, real corporal punishment. And for the film I'm reviewing, they took a different approach and decided to add a bit of realism to the plot as well. Inmates, along with its sequel, is shot as a pseudo TV documentary, showing life in a women's prison, like those "Lockup" programs they show on the weekends on MSNBC or on the Discovery Channel. You know, where they interview the prisoners on camera and show what really goes on inside the cells? Except I don't recall any of those other TV shows where we see women stripped naked, tied down and given a vicious lashing. If they did, you can bet their ratings would go through the roof.

The film takes place in the Harastopol State Prison in Eastern Europe. We follow a new prisoner named Angel as she arrives in the institution to begin her first day of a 6-year sentence for drug trafficking. She meets the warden, gets fingerprinted, and...strip searched! Okay, we're 3 minutes into the movie and this is already better than any of those other prison shows.

For the record, Angel has a very nice body, with no tattoos, to go along with her pretty face. She was the reason why I wanted to see this movie. The strip-search scene is handled very matter-of-factly, however, with Angel displaying no shame or fear whatsoever and her only reaction is to grimace when the prison worker sticks her gloved finger up Angel's asshole to check for contraband.

Angel changes into her new prison clothes and is led into her cell to meet her new cellmates. She's interviewed on camera at various times throughout the show. Her line reading is merely adequate, showing little emotion at all, and it's obvious she was hired for her looks and not her acting ability. Some of the other residents of the prison are interviewed also, and we are told that the smuggling of drugs inside the walls is a big problem. Foreshadowing of scenes to come, no doubt.

Then around 10 minutes into the film, a bizarre thing happens. The narrative stops and there's a preview for another Mood Pictures movie! And I'm wondering what happened; was there a problem with my download? No, it turns out this was intentional; it's a "commercial break" (just like on TV!) and all the commercials just happen to be ads for more Mood Pictures videos. This happens 3 times throughout the show. Sorry, I cry foul. I don't like commercials on free TV, and I sure as hell don't appreciate them on a download that costs over 40 dollars.

After the commercial break, we're back for more of our story. Two of the guards pull a surprise inspection on one of the cells and a small amount of drugs are found in 2 of the mattresses. That means 2 of the prisoners will be punished. The first is to receive 50 whip strokes to her back, while the other is to be given 30 strokes with the strap to her bare behind. Both female prisoners are quite attractive, which means they lose, and we win!

The prisoner to be strapped is tied naked, on her hands and knees, to a wooden platform. Her ass is exposed and her body is held in place by ropes securing her to an "H frame" in the middle of the platform. The warden orders her to count out the number of strokes, and it doesn't take long before she's crying from the pain. The chick dealing out the punishment is no tenderfoot; she really cuts loose on every stroke.

The pretty brunette prisoner, with her big tits dangling, lets out some delicious wailing and bawling as her ass is quickly turned to a lovely shade of scarlet. That was fun, let's punish her some more!

Now we get to the other girl, and a male guard has been selected to administer the whipping, since he is famous for his harsh strokes. Oh, good. She is told to stand naked facing the bars of a cell; her arms are spread apart and cuffed to the bars on the either side. Like the previous prisoner, she's told to count down the whip strokes out loud after each one.

The first crack of the whip leaves a red diagonal stripe across her back, and it's clearly real and not the "painted on" variety you see in some other videos. It doesn't take long before other such marks adorn her back, all of them punctuated by painful screams by the unfortunate victim. After 10 strokes, the guard mocks her by telling her there's still a long way to go.

And there is, a lot more entertainment for the viewer and suffering for her. After 25 strokes, he tells her, "Do you guess what is awaiting you in the second phase of the punishment? I'm going to strike you much harder." God, this guy must really love his work.

The strokes continue, and at several points, the victim cries out, "It hurts so much!" and you have to think she's not just acting here. She endures all 50, crying out in anguish after every blow, and her back is heavily marked up by the end. Hey, this is what happens to prisoners who break the rules, bitch.

After another needless commercial interruption, the story continues. More drugs are found in a cell, and that means someone else will have to be punished. Prison protocol dictates that the new girl Angel must take the blame, even though she's innocent. Otherwise, her cellmates will consider her a betrayer, which could lead to her getting killed. Her hope that she might get a lesser sentence for a first offense is squashed; she gets the full 50 strokes with the cane, the maximum penalty. Ha ha, yes!

Angel is tied down on her hands and knees in the same position as the first girl. 3 different female guards dish out the punishment, and all know how to swing a cane to get the maximum results. In spite of the pain, Angel puts up a brave front at first, but by the 20th stroke, she's openly crying. And it gets louder and louder as the vicious caning continues.

By the end, her ass and upper thighs are covered with dark, angry welts. Whatever wooden performance she gave earlier is forgiven, since she's clearly not faking her reaction to being tortured here. Those are definitely real tears. Small surprise that it was the first and last time she ever acted in a Mood Pictures movie.

And that's how this one ends. We are told that we will see more of what happens in the prison in the next installment, but since the cutest girls appear in this first feature, I passed on checking out Part 2.

After the credits roll, there's also a telling interview with Victoria Young, who plays the second victim. She admits she's not into the S&M lifestyle at all and did the movie for the money. She also thinks the men who watch these type of movies are "crazy", and she has no desire to watch her own work on film now or ever. Kind of refreshing to get a perspective that's just the opposite of the girls from sites like Kink.com who sit down for interviews afterward and gush about how turned on they were during the shoot.

But getting back to Inmates, the women's prison storyline had the potential to be quite dramatic, but I never really detected a foreboding sense of fear in the female inmates, particularly the new girl, Angel. And intercutting the action with previews of other Mood Pictures movies was just a bad idea; all it did was distract from the movie we were trying to watch. Commercials suck, and you definitely shouldn't have to pay for them.