"Women in Cages" might be the best-made Women In Prison (WIP) movie I've seen, if not the most enjoyable. I'm surprised I'd never heard of Filipino filmmaker Gerry de Leon. I read that Tarantino is a huge fan - naming a character in "True Romance" after the Pam Grier character in this film - and I'm not surprised. I watched this right after "The Big Doll House", a more famous WIP flick with Pam Grier, and the difference is amazing, and all pretty much down to the direction. The framing of shots, use of close-up, and even the colour pallette combine to make de Leon's film a cut above.
However, if it has a fault it's that it's too self-serious to be really entertaining, and the trappings of WIP flicks make it too silly to be taken seriously. So you are left with a curiosity.
There is, after all, little point in summarising the plot: they're all the same, aren't they? It goes like this: pretty young woman is framed for a crime and sent to a prison in some unnamed remote location - usually a jungle in Asia or South America - where the sadistic warden tortures inmates with techniques inspired by S&M. The warden will often be a lesbian, as will, probably, some of the other inmates, and there'll be at least one shower scene. It all culminates in an escape attempt.
The movie is also, surprisingly, not all that exploitative. There's no full frontal nudity, and the shower scene doesn't seem thrown in just to appease lecherous audience members. There's also very little violence or sex.
Pam Grier also plays the warden in this one, after being a prisoner in (I think) all the other WIP flicks she starred in. De Leon gives her character more depth than one might expect. Perhaps he realised what Grier was capable of as an actress?
However, if it has a fault it's that it's too self-serious to be really entertaining, and the trappings of WIP flicks make it too silly to be taken seriously. So you are left with a curiosity.
There is, after all, little point in summarising the plot: they're all the same, aren't they? It goes like this: pretty young woman is framed for a crime and sent to a prison in some unnamed remote location - usually a jungle in Asia or South America - where the sadistic warden tortures inmates with techniques inspired by S&M. The warden will often be a lesbian, as will, probably, some of the other inmates, and there'll be at least one shower scene. It all culminates in an escape attempt.
The movie is also, surprisingly, not all that exploitative. There's no full frontal nudity, and the shower scene doesn't seem thrown in just to appease lecherous audience members. There's also very little violence or sex.
Pam Grier also plays the warden in this one, after being a prisoner in (I think) all the other WIP flicks she starred in. De Leon gives her character more depth than one might expect. Perhaps he realised what Grier was capable of as an actress?