Caged - Le prede umane

I had intended to watch The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T for my 5000th review on IMDb but I couldn't find it, so I plumped for yet another trashy women-in-prison flick instead (to be honest, I didn't look THAT hard for the Seuss film). Caged Women is short on '50s surrealism and bizarre musical numbers but heavy on sex and sleaze, with nary a frame going by without bums, boobs and bush.

Former Spanish beauty queen Pilar Orive plays American traveller Janet Cooper, who finds herself thrown into a remote South American women's prison on a trumped-up drugs charge. While she is subjected to the usual genre ordeals (forced to strip, abused by a lesbian guard, a pressure-hose shower, sold for sex etc.), helicopter mechanic Frank Nolan (Christian Lorenz), with whom Janet had a steamy one-night stand, attempts to find the missing woman.

Writer/director Leandro Lucchetti packs plenty of sex and nudity into his film, but with none of the gritty mean-spiritedness to be found in many similarly themed movies, Caged Women might well disappoint many fans of Women In Prison movies. What's sorely needed is some sleazy Jess Franco style torture and sadism, but what we get is almost a parody of the Women In Prison genre, with far-too-attractive prisoners in extremely short smocks (one inch below minge base) menaced unconvincingly by Captain Juan (Aldo Sambrell), lesbian guard Gerda (Elena Wiedermann) and their clientele of wealthy farmers who pay to have sex with the women.

I realise that most viewers aren't watching this kind of film expecting absolute realism, but the film borders on the farcical at times, the most ridiculous scene seeing Janet and fellow American inmate Louise (Isabel Libossart) trapped in a cage under the mid-day sun, licking the sweat off each other's naked bodies to stay alive (never mind the fact that doing so would actually make them ill - it's sexy, so screw logic!). Luchetti also stretches plausibility during the 'human hunt' finalé, with Frank (who has made his way to the island) hiding guns in all of the traps on the island for the women to use against their pursuers. How did Frank know where the traps were? How did he get hold of the weapons? How did he find time to put them in the traps? Wouldn't he have been better off keeping a machine gun for himself and using the element of surprise on the prison guards?

Don't get me wrong... I didn't have a bad time with the film (it's certainly a lot better than the previous WIP film I watched: Savage Island 'featuring' Linda Blair), but I had hoped that the Playboy-style sexy stuff would be balanced by more deviant exploitational goodness - you know... like human experimentation, flesh-eating rats, electrodes applied to tender body-parts, and sex-crazed dwarfs.

"Janet Cooper" (Pilar Orive) is an American tourist who travels to a small South American village to get away from it all. While in a bar she meets a helicopter pilot named "Frank Nolan" (Christian Lorenz) and spends the night with him. Unfortunately, when she wakes up she is arrested by a corrupt policeman and whisked away to a prison in a remote part of the jungle. As it so happens this prison is filled with women who are routinely stripped and beaten until they agree to have sex with any man who can come up with the money. Janet, on the other hand, refuses to cooperate and as a result she earns the enmity of the head female guard named "Gerda" (Elena Wiedermann) and the so-called warden "Captain Juan" (Aldo Sambrell). Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this was a pretty standard Women-in-Prison (WIP) movie for the most part. It featured a couple of attractive actresses who played their parts well enough but the dialogue was weak and some of the scenes seemed to drag on much too long which caused the movie to be rather boring at times. Having said that I would have to rate it as just slightly below average.

Here we have a prime example of a women-in-prison film. None of the standard ingredients is missing: shower scenes, the lesbian prison guard, sexual abuse of the prisoners, unlawful imprisonment, staff murdering inmates, etc. We even have a good guy and a happy ending.

However, this film is way over the top, increasing the sleaze factor enormously, and having not the slightest inclination to tell a believable story. For example, both the sexual abuse and the unlawful killings are organised: the women are first auctioned to the highest bidder, then let loose in the jungle, then hunted down, then raped, and then killed. Come to think of it, this is actually one of the more believable elements of this prison system.

Although superficially the film is much more exploitative (more sex and more violence) than even the usual genre entries by the likes of Cirio H. Santiago, Jack Hill, or Jess Franco, the viewer is always aware that none of this is serious and that turns it around, it makes it less nasty. Do not get me wrong: this is not a comedy, and it does not have any unintentional laughs either; but it is noticeably tongue-in-cheek.

A women in prison film for the low brow in us all.

Woman is sent off to prison after rebuffing the advances of a sleazy guy who kidnaps her and sends her to the mountain top prison in some third world country. There the prisoners run around damn near naked as they are abused, raped and hunted by the staff. Meanwhile, the guy who did go home with the woman the night before tries to find out where she disappeared to.

For the record I've seen this in two versions undubbed or subbed French version (this is the reason my plot summary is lacking in details) with all of the nudity, sex and violence intact and a Japanese import version in English with Japanese subtitles, shortened by 12 minutes and heavily fogged (which I shut off almost instantly because of the censoring). Given the choice I'd watch the fuller version I'm not sure what I think of this film. Its a good movie if you like these sort of things, but at the same time it seems to be be play acting and not too serious (I can't believe that the women's hair always look perfect). Its a weird feeling, it some how misses the grit and violence of say The Big Bird Cage or Caged Heat, and exists just for the titillation of the sleaze factor. I some how wanted more than just the scenes of naked women running in slow motion, soft-core bondage and trashy lesbianism. On some level its a women in prison film which wants to be something spicier, but no more offensive than the Man Shows girls on trampolines. I think I missed the strong take no crap stands of the women in the Roger Corman produced films of the early 70's.

Its not bad, but given the chance I'd probably go with the earlier films (though this does have some classic exploitation scenes including the one with the two women are thrown in a cage in the hot sun with no source of water). If you like women in prison films I'd say try it, though you'll remember the pieces more than the whole.

Yes- this IS the best WIP film ever made. I know that Jess Franco did some hotties, but this take the genre Oscar for its combination of sensuality, brutality and downright steaminess.

The UK censors murdered this film on certification, and many of us pondered long and hard what was behind the voids and sharp edits that their pointless activities had generated. It was released under the title "Caged Women", but is also known as "Caged - Le Prede Umane" and "QHS" (Quartier Haute Sécurité- French DVD title). It is the French title you need if you want to see this film in all its 90m uncut glory.

Pilar Orive, a former Miss Spanish Basque Country, is utterly magnificent as the abused heroine. She is both Amazonian and completely transfixing, and it stirred my teenage heart (and other bits) when released in 1992. That she and many of the cast are stark naked throughout the film is a plus rather than any sort of negative.

Its works for me- and I promise will work for you.....