Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.5

Fugitive Girls Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Brian Orndorf January 28, 2018

Director Stephen C. Apostolof (credited here as A.C. Stephen) and screenwriter Ed Wood collaborated on multiple occasions, with the “Plan 9 from Outer Space” helmer churning out scripts that embraced low-budget possibilities, with exploitation highlights employed to create marketplace demand for the pictures. Their partnership began with 1965’s “Orgy of the Dead” and eventually made its way to 1974’s “Fugitive Girls” (a.k.a. “Five Loose Women”), and, much like “Dead,” the feature does away with most dramatic necessities to charge ahead as a women-on-the-run endeavor, complete with broad characterizations and frequent nudity. It’s nonsense, but as B-movie entertainment, Apostolof and Wood rarely pretend that they have anything but sleazy weirdness to share, and the filmmaking honesty is refreshing.

Dee (Margie Lanier) has terrible taste in men, with her newest lover leaving her to take the heat for his crimes. Now stuck in prison, surrounded by hotheads and predators, Dee is forced to face her new reality, subjected to humiliations and sexual assault. However, the prisoners on her cell block are ready to make their exit, taking Dee along for the journey as a pack of convicts makes their escape, heading into the wild to interact with hippies, perverts, and homeowners, sharing their appetite for violence and need for clothing with everyone they encounter, trying to remain one step ahead of the police.

The first thing noticeable in “Fugitive Girls” is its softcore sex scenes, with Wood and Apostolof inching fairly close to hardcore footage with the couplings displayed through the picture, showcasing the heat right up front as Dee and her boyfriend enjoy time together on a hotel bed. Sex is peppered through the movie but consent is a rarity, finding Dee subjected to a full body scan from the prison lesbian, who isn’t interested in respecting the new arrival’s boundaries, and there’s an unusual attack on a creepy guy out surveying the back roads for hitchhikers. The perve gets a little more than he bargained for, as rape, the national anthem of the 1970s, is shared freely with everyone. Such aggression generally mutes heat, leaving bedroom (and desert) encounters more of a technical achievement than a sensual one, with the production looking to deliver a little taboo action to appeal to grindhouse enthusiasts.

Skin is more of priority to “Fugitive Girls” than story, and it’s highly amusing to watch Wood come up with ways to keep the actresses constantly undressing, with dirty clothes more of a shared complaint than the arrival of pursuing cops. There’s something of a hunt for buried money, with one prisoner hoping to reclaim a small fortune and escape to the good life, but the overall drama of the feature is portioned out in episodic encounters, watching the ladies encounter strangers along the way. There’s a band of hippies who provide campfire warmth and entertainment, the aforementioned driver with a taste for desperate pedestrians, and an unpleasant home invasion featuring a man in a wheelchair (adding a Vietnam element to the tale, and that’s as political as Wood gets) who can’t stop the gang from swarming his wife, moving in for the kill. “Fugitive Girls” doesn’t offer substance, but at least it’s rarely dull, remaining on the move while the central characters bicker and threaten one another, keeping the run irritable between bouts of nudity.

Helping the “Fugitive Girls” cause is a music score made up of public domain tunes(?), which deliver a full blast of hot sax to sustain the seedy atmosphere, and there’s “Manos”-ian jazz to add some tempo to scenes, keeping soundtrack choices lively, insistent, and sometimes hilariously random, finding a few experimental stretches sounding like a person falling down inside a music store.

Fugitive Girls Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The AVC encoded image (1.85:1 aspect ratio) presentation is billed as "Newly scanned and restored in 2K from the 35mm original negative." After decades of strange VHS and DVD releases (issued under titles such as "Women's Penitentiary VIII"), "Fugitive Girls" arrives on Blu-ray with strong clarity at times, offering a look at the multiple stars of the movie as they maneuver in and out of clothes, and the rural locations supply dimensional distances. Cinematographic limitations remain (focus has issues), but textures are easy to study on costuming and outdoor adventures. Colors are tastefully refreshed, showcasing hearty primaries on period costuming and stylized lighting during car rides, and greenery retains richness. Skintones are accurate. Grain is fine and filmic. Delineation is secure. Source holds together, with a few cigarette burns detected, and some mild speckling.

Fugitive Girls Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The 1.0 DTS-HD MA sound mix delivers a very active musical presence for the film, with varied scoring and soundtrack cuts generating a proper exploitation mood. Instrumentation isn't precise, but bigness is welcome. Dialogue exchanges offer some crispy highs but remain authoritative, battling inherent sound issues to emerge with dramatic power.

Fugitive Girls Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary features Ed Wood biographer Rudolph Grey and filmmaker Frank Henenlotter.

• Archival Audio Interview (95:05) with actress Tallie Cochrane is presented in commentary fashion, playing during the film. Sound quality isn't great, but the length should please B-movie fans.

• And an Original Promo Trailer (:30, HD) and Theatrical Trailer (4:53, HD) are included.

Fugitive Girls Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

"Fugitive Girls" bears all the marks of a Wood production, with the crew having trouble maintaining focus and staying out of shots, and dialogue isn't handled by season veterans of acting, with shouted exchanges the norm with this cast (Wood joins the fun in a dual role as a cop and a gas station attendant). It's not strong work on a technical level, just barely getting by at times, but expectations for something more substantial seem ridiculous with this filmmaking pair -- a partnership that once built an entire movie around long striptease sequences. "Fugitive Girls" is ugly but harmless, obviously straining to be sleazy enough to appeal to the target audience, and its goofiness is easily appreciable, remaining in line with previous Wood/Apostolof endeavors, with this effort slightly more interested in X-rated-style action to compete in a porno chic era.