Penitentiary II

A hitchhiker named Martel Gordone gets in a fight with two bikers over a prostitute, and one of the bikers is killed. Gordone is arrested and sent to prison, where he joins the prison's boxing team in an effort to secure an early parole and to establish his dominance over the prison's toughest gang.

A man is framed for murder and sent to prison. He is beaten and tortured, then forced to fight the prison's worst killer, a martial-arts fighting midget called Thud.

A naive young woman moves from the South to stay with her aunt and uncle in Compton. As an outsider, she struggles at first to find her footing, but soon falls into the middle of a community of rebellious youth. She soon becomes more and more aware of the social injustices of the big city.

A man is framed for murder and sent to prison. He is beaten and tortured, then forced to fight the prison's worst killer, a martial-arts fighting midget called Thud.

A hitchhiker named Martel Gordone gets in a fight with two bikers over a prostitute, and one of the bikers is killed. Gordone is arrested and sent to prison, where he joins the prison's boxing team in an effort to secure an early parole and to establish his dominance over the prison's toughest gang.

A young man takes over as the head of a crack dealing outfit after his brother, the gang's leader, is murdered.

After wrongly doing time in prison for murder, a man seeks revenge on a racist law enforcement system and the detective who framed him.

Jamaa Fanaka’s first project plays off the Blaxploitation’s genre conventions, an adaption of Goethe’s “Faust” presented with a non-synchronous soundtrack and superimposed over a remake of Super Fly (1972). Often out of focus with an overactive camera, the film immediately exudes nervous energy, but unlike Priest’s elegant cocaine consumption in Super Fly, Willie’s arm gushes blood as he injects heroin. A morality tale in two reels. —Jan-Christopher Horak