When a prostitute by the name of "Sugar Bowman" (Phyllis Davis) is set up on a phony drug bust she is given the option of either serving several harsh years in a penitentiary or working for only 2 years at a prison which doubles as a sugar plantation. Sugar decides to cut her losses and opts for the 2 years. Unfortunately, what she doesn't know is that it is run by an abusive director named "Burgos" (Cliff Osmond) and a sadistic doctor known as "Dr. John" (Angus Duncan). Soon her attitude gets the best of her and this results in punishments for all the female prisoners which include rape, torture and even medical experimentation. Now, as far as the merits of this movie are concerned, I must say that the acting was pretty bad and the story meandered all over the place. But even so it was still kind of fun and it had some nice-looking ladies which included Pamela Collins (as "Dolores"),Ella Edwards ("Simone") and the aforementioned Phyllis Davis. That said, while I cannot honestly say it was necessarily a "good" movie, I may have cut it some slack and scored it slightly higher than it probably deserves.

SWEET SUGAR is a cheap and derivative women-in-prison movie that seems to have been released to ride a wave of similar produce. This one introduces the main character, Sugar, in a brief set-up scene in which she's arrested as part of a drugs sting and sent to a rural prison "somewhere or other" where she forms part of a chain gang. Meanwhile, the women must deal with in-fighting amongst themselves, the machinations of the cruel guards, and the sadistic experiments of a mad doctor.

It all sounds very exciting and exploitational and yet it's really rather cheap and slapdash, just like Michel Levesque's other B-movie, WEREWOLVES ON WHEELS. Levesque seems interested in shooting a skin flick and a skin flick alone, so there's plenty of topless and rear nudity here but not much else in the way of suspense, tension, or violence.

I didn't mind Phyllis Davis too much as the lead. She's a top-heavy starlet clearly cast for her physique rather than acting ability, but she distinguishes herself quite well and there's something about her more than the usual bimbo actress. One of the most interesting things about the production are the authentically sweaty Costa Rican locations. Bizarrely, there are hints at voodoo in the narrative too, Timothy Brown playing a hilarious priest character who seeks to help the women. This isn't a film for cat lovers either. However, the resolutely plodding narrative mainly consists of escape and capture over and over again, and the air of familiarity means that this is a film only for sympathetic lovers of the genre.

Feisty prostitute Sugar (a winningly brash and spunky performance by statuesque brunette stunner Phyllis Davis) gets busted on a trumped-out marijuana possession charge and has to serve two years hard labor cutting sugar cane at a harsh prison plantation farm. The wicked and deranged warden Dr. John (a deliciously hammy portrayal of pure eye-rolling cackling evil by Angus Duncan) grossly mistreats the inmates by subjecting them to all kinds of twisted and inhumane medical experiments. Naturally, Sugar and several other ladies plot to escape from this dismal hellhole. Director Michel Levesque and screenwriter Don Spencer load this satisfyingly seamy potboiler with all the right trashy grindhouse stuff: we've got a constant snappy pace, a handy helping of tasty female nudity, rape, hot babes in tight tank tops and skimpy cut-off shorts, a couple of obligatory shower scenes, degradation, torture (Dr. John locks a bunch of trouble-making gals in a room with a gaggle of ferocious rabid felines!),a catfight, and a rousing last reel break-out set piece. Moreover, the cast of familiar B-movie faces have a field day with their juicy roles: Ella Edwards as the sassy Simone, Cliff Osmond as the mean and sadistic captain Burgos, Timothy Brown as affable voodoo-practicing convict Mojo, Pamela Collins as sweet, vulnerable teenager Dolores, James Whitworth as brutish guard Mario, Albert Cole as likable contraband dealer Max, and James Houghton as lovably dim-witted lunkhead Ric. Gabriel Torres' reasonably slick cinematography gives the picture an attractive bright look. Don Gere's groovy, swinging score and the funky, syncopated theme song both hit the soulful spot. A pleasingly scuzzy and spirited piece of blithely low-rent junk.