Oddball mixture of women-in-prison, zombie, and kung-fu genre elements has Tony Todd starring as an executed psychopath who murdered and raped women before his death by lethal injection. Todd's name is Shadow and his blood is powerful due to a successful ritual which equipped him with superhuman capabilities. When a riot breaks out after Shadow's body explodes(!),during the process of his execution, the prisoners are gunned down by a prison warden's guards. They are buried in a pit on the grounds of the prison along with Shadow's remains, to be forgotten.

20 years later, the prison is a women's reformatory, built as a sort of rehabilitation center for female criminals to help them recover from their past mistakes which brought them to their current situation. A new prisoner is entering the institution, her name Solitaire(Clare Green),a tough young woman with amazing martial arts fighting skills..which she'll need in order to combat a nasty, muscular felon named Mondo who commands an authoritative, intimidating presence among the other inmates, afraid of her because she's stronger and bigger than they are.

The prison's doctor has a vial of Shadow's blood and begins injecting Solitaire with it, hoping the powerful properties will prove that it is a source of eternal life. Meanwhile, Shadow's remains will be resurrected when an inmate(Misti Mundae, AKA, Erin Brown),attempting to escape, snaps her ankle, bleeding into the ground which represents his burial place. Not only will Shadow rise from the earth, but so will the dead inmates buried along with him. Shadow will confront and attempt to destroy Solitaire, the one he sought after when he killed her mother many years ago.

Director Derek Wan is mostly concerned with showing bodies hurled in the air and up against walls with brute force. Solitaire has the uncanny ability to withstand brutal punishment which would paralyze most people, but the excuse for this is Shadow's blood which courses through her veins. Included are the sleazy head of security, Elsa Thorne(Andrea Langi),a lesbian who offers certain inmates privileges as long as they service her sexual needs, and the usual naked showers. Tatianna Butler is Mondo, one of the major antagonists which Solitaire must contend with, although our heroine gets the best of her every time. Michael Quinlan is the other antagonist, Dr. Swann, who actually injects the newborn baby of an inmate, Emily(Cat Miller),with Shadow's blood turning the infant into a bloodthirsty monster reminiscent to the creature in IT'S ALIVE. Swann wants to test Shadow's blood on others before using it on himself. He also supplies a junkie inmate with pills in exchange for sexual favors. But Todd and Greene own this movie as villain and heroine respectively. They have not one but two showdowns and there's plenty of wire-fu where poor Greene gets tossed around, not without getting her licks in. Misty Mundae has a minor role as one of those abused inmates who Mondo mistreats..and, yes, she does get naked on occasion, but leaves the film far too soon. Nina Hodoruk is the warden who desperately wants to rehabilitate and help her prisoners, deeply worried about the occurrences which threaten her institution. You get plenty of zombie carnage at the end, when the female prisoners must ward off(mostly unsuccessfully)the undead awakened by Shadow's blood. Todd makes his appearance in the beginning and end of the film, showing up in flashback when past incidents pop up in Solitaire's mind after she touches a ritualistic symbol carved in the floor of a solitary prison cell she's confined to for fighting with Mondo. Most of the effects are small scale which is probably why Wan edits violent scenes with the gore fast as to not dwell too long on them. The ending involving a special knife and the mark on Shadow's hand makes no sense at all.

The film begins with Tony Todd as Shadow in prison awaiting to be put to death for countless crimes of murder and rape. His teeth are honed into points. During his execution some supernatural stuff happens and a prison riot ensues. Todd and the corpses of his inmates are place in a mass grave....

We now flash forward 20 years to the present. It is now a woman's prison complete with a sadistic lesbian guard (Andrea Langi),shower scene, horny doctor and the new tough girl, Solitaire. Solitaire ends up in solitaire where she touches a carving in the floor made by Todd. She has visions of the ghastly images of his crimes including the torture and killing of a pregnant woman. Misty Mundae (credited as Erin Brown) plays Crystal, the prison girlfriend of Mondo, Solitaire's nemesis.

When blood is spilled on the ground where Todd is buried...all zombie hell breaks loose.

occasional f-bomb, minor sex, lesbian themes, full frontal nudity (only when tasteful and necessary for the plot),girls with tramp stamps, a baby from "It's Alive" (they wanted to make sure everything was covered) excessive blood and gore. Grindhouse cult classic. Deleted scenes include tasteful extended shower scenes. Not for everyone. A Misty Mundae prison girl zombie film, a must for discriminating collectors.

Or even D-movie? I like me a really low-to-no budget movie from time to time. Because they don't take themselves serious. This is the case here too, but still I couldn't enjoy the movie. Yes I knew the budget was tight and that there would not be so much money at hand, but seeing they could hire a martial Arts expert, for the fight scenes, makes you wonder why they didn't also spend money on a funnier script (w/o every cliché in the book)!

Although the tone of the movie is not to be serious, the main actress does take her job a bit too seriously, which contradicts the whole thing and feels stupid. So while there is one or two original things here, the overall feeling, for me was "boring"!