Caged Fury

Pure 80s cheese for fans of women's prison flicks.

Kat (Roxanna Michaels), fresh off the farm, goes to L.A. to make it as an actress and gets thrown in a fake prison where the inmates are sold as sex slaves. Her sister Tracy (Elena Sahagun) comes to her rescue, along with Erik Estrada and Richard Barathy as a mullet-ed beefcake that karate chops his way though everyone. Of course, the two guys ride off into the sunset on their Harleys with the two women behind.

Typical lesbian, leather-clad warden (Mindi Miller), huge sadistic matrons, shower scenes, simulated sexual scenes, and lots of fighting. Lots of recognizable porn stars for the fans.

For serious fans of this genre only.

Innocent women wrongly convicted when they put too much trust into the wrong man are thrown into a hellish prison, where the only break they get from the sadistic lesbians gleefully conducting cavity searches and psychotic male guards smacking them around is when they're allowed to take a long, steamy showers. Been there, done that, only "Caged Fury" has a twist, one that you'll decipher quickly enough on your own, and spend the rest of the movie wondering why the "prisoners" never catch on (the movie's explanation: women are stupid). Also, it stars Erik Estrada.

Our heroines are a pair of Utah farm girls, Cat (Roxanna Micheals) and Tracy (Elena Sahagan). Tracy is the wild sister, the one who ran off to New York and came back looking like a mad scientist's experiment to transform LaToya Jackson into Pia Zadora, but retaining a country gal's love of baseball caps and acid-wash denim. Despite their father's (Michael Parks) misgivings, Cat wants to follow in her big sister's footsteps, only she wants to go to L.A. instead of New York because she's independent that way. As she heads west in her Taurus station wagon she's flagged down by Rhonda (April Dawn Dollarhide), a hitch-hiker fending off a fat hick rapist. Though Rhonda has no stated itinerary, she has a contact in L.A., "fashion" photographer Buck (Blake Bahner). Girls may go for Buck's studly good looks, but they stay for his charming style, such as when he asks his guest from Utah: "Cat, as in p—sy?" The movie's other conceit: the men of Los Angeles are sleazy pigs — except Erik Estrada and Richard Barathy, who rescue Cat from a biker gang rape at the ersatz metal club Buck takes the girls to (Buck would've saved her, but he was busy sexing up Rhonda in a realistically grimy/unrealistically roomy restroom).

After Cat thanks Estrada for his chivalry with her body (hey, she pretty much HAS to), Buck takes the girls to an audition that's so intentionally cheesy the actors get eyestrain winking at the camera. But just when Cat's about to catch on that she's auditioning for—gasp!—a porn video, she and Rhonda are booked on solicitation charges and sent to prison. Lucky for Cat, her big sister Tracy's got her back. Unfortunately, Tracy's not any smarter than she is, since Tracy's plan entails getting sent to the same prison and, well, she hasn't quite worked out all the details. Guess it's up to Estrada and Barathy, the only decent men in all of L.A., to save them. Uh-oh, Estrada gets shot and spends the last act in an ambulance being tended to by a sexy nurse. So it's Barathy, with his lethal kick-boxing skills and luxurious mullet, who finally takes down the bad guys. But first, how about some lesbianism, hot showers and a cameo from Ron Jeremy?

The issue with "Caged Fury" isn't quality. It's bad, sure, but we knew that going in. But why isn't it more fun? There is evidence it's trying to be a parody in the vein of "Reform School Girls," but its humor makes the women, not the genre, the butt of the joke. What's more, "Caged Fury" has no deliciously campy performances. Ty Randolph, as the dominatrix-outfitted warden, does what she can but she's no Pat Ast or Sybil Danning; and Ron Jeremy and Erik Estrada, who have lent camp cache to other direct-to-video projects, are given little to do here. "Caged Fury" also doesn't cut it as exploitation. Director Bill Milling has several adult video credits ("A Scent of Heather," "Blonde Goddess"), but with "Caged Fury" he stays safely inside the confines of an R-rating, not even daring to push into "hard-R" territory. Yeah, you get your T&A, some full-frontal glimpses and some violence (a fork in the eyeball being the goriest set-piece), but the sex is so tame it's not even worth mentioning. A guy who directed hardcore porn skimps on the sex scenes? Guess Milling wanted people to see him as something other than a porn director, but sometimes it's best to stick with what you know.

My review was written in March 1990 after watching the movie on RCA/Columbia video cassettes.

The first of Menahem Golan's 21st Century pics to go direct-to-video, "Caged Fury" is a haphazardly slapped together but entertaining throwback to the women in prison genre of the early 1970s. It's unrelated to a 1984 Filipino-made release of the same name.

Pic is set in the underbelly of L. A., where unscrupulous Jack Carter and Beano prey upon young girls like Utah-born Roxanna Michaels who heat to lotus land to become actresses. She goes to an audition, the videotape of which is used by Carter & Beano to frame her for a jail sentence.

It turns out to be a fke prison, run by entertainingly exortic domiatrix "warden" Ty Randolph (in the film's most impressive role). This is a front for white slavery and it takes Michaels' older sister Elena Sahagun and pals Erik Estrada and Richie Barathy to save the heroine and expose the scam.

Fast-paced pic is virtually a catalog of genre cliches, but suffers from poor editing. Several brief scenes seem placed out of order and the finale is loaded with contradictions.

Cast does a good job, particularly Michaels as the heroine and karate expert Barathy kicking every heavy in sight. Porn star Ron Jeremy, previously featured in Golan's "52 Pick-Up", pops up as a prison guard and the film opens memorably with statuesque porn star Kascha (billed here as Alison LePriol) crawling around in her lace undies trying to escape from stir.

...if you went into this, expecting a MOVIE!

Let's just say as a movie, "Caged Fury" makes a great peep show!

Same old song: innocent farm girl goes to big city (LA, if I recall) looking for stardom, ends up in the kind of prison that is an actual front for a white slavery ring; her sister goes looking for her, ends up in the same prison.

NOW, here is where things get kind of confusing. You see, this movie doesn't know whether or not it wants to be a sleazy women's prison movie, a porn flick, a cop movie or a kung-fu flick!

I mentioned porn flick because this one has a big number of porn stars here, many under assumed names. If you're a fan, you'll recognize Kashcha, Ron Jeremy, Tyffany Million, Janine Lindemuller and Julia Parton.

It also has Erik Estrada (!!!) as a cop/detective looking for the girls and the huge, bulky Richard Barathy as his partner, who happens to know some beefy kung-fu moves that put all the baddies in their place. And not only are these two here, but there are also appearances by Michael Parks, Jack Carter, Paul Smith (yes, Beast Rabban from the 1984 "Dune" movie) and James Hong.

Anyway, there's loads of female nudity (it IS a women's prison flick, after all), kung-fu fighting, simulated sex, plenty of stupidity, truck-loads of prison stereotypes, entire continents of beautiful chicks and an ending where everything turns out okay. Oh, and did I mention Erik Estrada?

You can't expect much from movies like this, but at least "Caged Fury" throws in a lot more than other films do. Name another women's prison flick with Erik Estrada... that's what I thought.

Two stars for "Caged Fury", plus one more for Erik Estrada - he needs more work like this.

When I popped "Caged Fury" into my VCR, I had no idea what to expect because I didn't have the VHS sleeve, so I thought I might be in for a kind of kick boxing movie... and I wasn't so far off. Let me explain. The film revolves around two sisters who get sent to this women's prison unjustifiably. Granted, lots of eye candy, but most of the scenes with any kind of nudity we're due to sexual harrasement and such... not much fun. Our hero is the top of the cake though. It's not explained how he is so talented at fighting, but he looked like a professional kickboxer! It was hilarious! There is no motive either for him to put his life on the line to save these two girls. Very bad though, but fun for a late night romp.