UCLA coeds Cathy Phillips (Deborah Raffin) and Diane Emery (Lynne Moody) are driving around the country before the start of school. They get a flat tire. A black man is willing to help them but that gets the ire of Sheriff Danen (Chuck Connors). The Sheriff arrests the girls for trespassing and rapes Diane in jail. When Diane tries to raise the issue, the Judge adds prostitution to the charges and sends the girls to the prison farm in Badham County. The Judge turns out to be the Sheriff's cousin. The prison is a corrupt racist excuse to provide slave labor for the well-connected. It's run by Dancer (Robert Reed) and his sadistic prisoners-turned-guards.

I can't believe that this was a TV movie. Obviously, the nudity would be cut but it's still a brutal viewing experience. This is a mix of 70's sexploitation and social justice. Parts of this are very hard to watch. It is grindhouse in its nature. The acting ranges from solid professional to amateurish. Sometimes, the sexploitation detracts from the seriousness of the work.

Nightmare in Badham County is a women's prison exploitation movie. The surprise is that is a network American television movie. It was spiced up for its European release with some gratuitous nudity and lesbianism.

Cathy Phillips (Deborah Raffin) and Diane Emery (Lynne Moody) are California college students driving in the deep south. After having some car trouble they upset redneck Sheriff Danen (Chuck Connors) by rejecting his amorous advances.

The sheriff has them locked up in jail for 30 days thanks to his cousin, the judge. In prison they are used as slave labour. Other women are used as playthings by the prison guards and the warden. If you step out of line you are severely spanked.

Cathy and Diane need to escape as their families are unaware of their predicament.

The movie covers the main elements of this type of genre. Racism also has a part to play as Cathy and Diane find themselves segregated with black prisoners being treated worse. As this was originally made for television, the exploitation part is toned down. The acting is a lot better with a cast that includes Della Reese, Robert Reed and Fionnula Flanagan.

It is not a great movie, a bit silly, camp and downbeat. The film ends with a drama documentary caption about the commercial exploitation of prisoners hoping that would justify is sleazy underpinnings.

Sweet Cathy Phillips (well played by the lovely Deborah Raffin) and her sassy best gal pal Diane Emery (a winningly brash and spirited performance by the fetching Lynne Moody) are a couple of California college students who experience car trouble while driving cross country in the deep rural south. The pair run afoul of evil small town Sheriff Danen (a deliciously nasty portrayal by Chuck Connors),who gets the ladies sentenced to thirty days time on a harsh prison work farm where the conditions are positively hellish and inhumane. Director John Llewellyn Moxey does an expert job of relating the grim, yet gripping story at a constant brisk pace, effectively creates a dark, bleak, gritty downbeat atmosphere, and stays true to the uncompromisingly sordid and depressing tone to the literal bitter end. The trashy script by Jo Heims offers a neat and engrossing blend of elements from both the women-in-prison and "don't go down to Dixie" redneck exploitation sub-genres. Better still, the seamy plot covers all the essential scuzzy grindhouse bases: we've got rape, lesbianism, a handy helping of tasty female nudity, savage whippings, pedophilia, and racism. The sound acting from a top-drawer cast constitutes as another significant asset: Raffin and Moody make for excellent and engaging leads, Connors has an absolute ball as a supremely slimy and hateful no-count crooked lawman, plus there's fine supporting turns by Ralph Bellamy as a kindly, but corrupt judge, Tina Louise as mean prison guard captain Greer, Robert Reed as smarmy pervert Superintendent Dancer, Della Reese as wise, hard-bitten veteran con Sarah, Lana Wood as wicked guard Smitty, Fionnula Flanagan as the equally vicious guard Dulcie, and Kim Wilson as scared, vulnerable teenage inmate Emiline. Charles Bernstein's twangy, flavorsome countryish score hits the harmonic spot. Frank Stanley's slick cinematography likewise does the trick. A nice'n'grimy slice of Southern-fried sleaze.