Recently re-mastered for improved picture quality, South American Vacation is one of Mood Pictures' early films that deserves a place in the library of any whipping/caning/women-in-prison fan. The premise is one that you've seen a hundred times – innocent young college girls is search of Big Fun travel on holiday to a generic South American country, party too hard in a club, and are picked up by the local police on drug charges. Simple, basic, gets the job done.
The movie opens with a bang – straight to the forced stripping and body cavity search of an innocent wholesome girl by an overbearing female guard and a man with the biggest biceps in Eastern Europe. You can tell she's wholesome because she has no tattoos, her teeth are healthy, and her hair is stylish. Girls like that don't get caught up in a drug sting, right? Right. Just to prove she's wholesome, she's stripped, fingered, and probed and no drugs are found. Obviously, she's innocent. Right? Right. But what about her friends?

In the next scene, a raven-haired girl, cuffed, is waiting at a simple table to speak with her attorney. He must be a very good attorney because he doesn't bother to get his clothes washed. He just goes out and buys new ones. This is obvious by the creases in his shirt – it's right out of the package. The attorney reviews Raven Hair's file and she admits that she ingested a pill. Travel Advisory #1: if you get picked up on suspicion of drug possession, don't admit to anything. The attorney advises her to disclose from whom she got the pill, but warns her that the judge won't be lenient. However, there is a chance that her sentence can be commuted to corporal punishment rather than spending time in jail.
Meanwhile, the other girls are being kept in a cramped, windowless cell. Raven Hair is brought in and the guard asks if anybody else wants to speak with an attorney. Travel Advisory #2: if a South American prison guard asks if you want an attorney, you should always say "No", unless one of your cellmates mentions that she has to pee.
Travel Advisory #3: you should pee before you get arrested. One of the girls didn't know this lesson and is forced to pee in the cell with the others smelling it.
Court is called to session, Judge Jessica Lee (a mainstay in the Mood Pictures stable) presiding. Judge Lee has some very definite ideas about justice and doesn't miss an opportunity to lay down her version of the law. There's a few minutes of this kangaroo court before things get interesting. At their sentencing, the girls' are given a choice: serve their time in a cold, unforgiving cell, or submit to corporal punishment. They decide that an ass-whipping is exactly what they need to set themselves on the straight and narrow, so they choose a paddling.
First up is Sexy Librarian (my nickname for her due to her glasses). She's forced to strip and submit to the guards before being tied to the caning platform. She has a young, strong physique, and should be able to withstand her punishment nicely.
Let's have another look at that body, before the guard gets down to business.
Sexy Librarian takes her strokes about as well as can be expected, with plenty of crying and screaming and pleading. For me, this was one of the best sequences in the film, although you may find the other candidates just as exciting. I did find a couple of the other scenes arousing, but that doesn't take anything away from this scene.
Next up is Wholesome Girl, who is also stripped, cuffed, and bound to the bench. Judging by her choice in footwear, I'm guessing she isn't as wholesome as we were led to believe.
Next up is my favorite of the 7 caning scenes. The girl has a strong resemblance to Anne Hathaway, and even if she didn't, she is still a damn fine piece of tail. I also like the cold looks she gives the guards as she's forced to comply with their orders; the sort of smoldering hatred I would expect in such a situation. I hope she went on to have a productive acting career. She has a talent rarely seen in these sorts of films.
Not only is she beautiful, but she's got an amazing strength of character and an even more amazing pain threshold. She's given five times the number of strokes as the first two girls and doesn't cry out until she's well into the double-digits. If these marks frighten you, in the words of the great Sardu of Bloodsucking Freaks, just pretend they aren't real.
The next girl is bound to a different frame and given a bullwhipping. After her comes Pee Girl, who gets the same treatment. Neither one of them does much for me, so I'll skip past them and go on to Raven Hair, who looks pretty good as she submits to the guards for her bullwhipping. Back when this film was made, she was a staple in the Elite Pain and Mood Pictures stable, so I expected big things from her. Despite my preparation, I was still shocked by her performance.
Two strokes in to her punishment, and she's crying hysterically. It gets worse from there. She gets so hysterical that she pulls her left hand right out of the cuffs. This was one of the most intense whipping scenes I've ever seen Mood Pictures put on video. As before, if her performance frightens you, just pretend it isn't real.
Next comes Doll Face. As it turns out, she's the ringleader of the group, so she'll get the most punishment for her law-breaking ways. She's brought in and forced to strip.
She's bound to the caning platform and receives her judicially-prescribed number of strokes. She cries out beautifully under the cane, and pretty soon that pretty face is pretty wrecked with pain. Then, just when we think the movie is over, she's mounted on the whipping frame for more punishment. Once again, she cries out beautifully as the strokes are applied to her spread body.
The movie ends with the girls all laying in beds in the infirmary, crying as they recover from their abuse. After the story is concluded, we're treated to bonus footage "behind the scenes", first of the girls in a club playing charades, then some on-set footage of Doll Face being prepared for her whipping. For me, this made the film "more real" because we can see that she really was whipped, even though some of her performance was embellished for the camera. As I mentioned earlier, if the sight of welts makes you squeamish, just pretend it isn't real.
Overall, this is a good film, and I'm glad it's been remastered and placed in their "Mood Classics" collection. It's stood up well to time due to its simple plot and bevy of beautiful girls who take their punishments with a mix of fear and stoicism. You're guaranteed to find at least one girl who rocks your boat, and that will make the film one worth having. On the whole, it probably isn't a masterpiece, but that isn't really the point for this sort of film. It's a good film that won't disappoint because it'll provide at least one scene that will make the film worth buying. For that, I'm giving it a B+.
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