Caged Women in Purgatory (1991)

"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.

A late entry in the women-in-prison exploitation genre, Caged Women is the brainchild of Italian director Leandro Lucchetti, creator of such titles as Bloody Psycho and Apocalypse Mercenaries, so we know what we're getting here, folks, and there is no point in setting our expectations high unless we happen to belong to that small band of souls who get their kicks from woman-hating porn.Former Miss Spanish Basque Country, Pilar Orive, stars as American Janet Cooper who arrives by boat at an unspecified South American country and immediately begins nibbling bananas in a suggestive manner. Dressed in a wholly appropriate little black number, Janet pays a visit to the seedy bar of her seedy hotel and is immediately hit on by a greasy local who later turns out to be a narcotics cop. Saved from his unwanted attentions by an American who (crucially, as it turns out) happens to be a helicopter technician, Miss Cooper dishes out the goodies to her knight in shining armour with such grace and expertise that she wins his undying love in the course of their one night stand. Which is a good thing for the hapless girl because the evil narc cop has planted drugs in her bag and the morning after her liaison with our hero has her drugged and shipped to a remote women's prison managed by a sleazy warden and a Nazi-type lesbian guard (Elena Wiedermann). Naturally, this prison is no enlightened centre for the rehabilitation of society's outcasts, and poor Janet, in a state of constant nudity, finds herself the subject of various sexual abuses.Surprisingly, this film isn't all that bad. The acting is pretty crappy, especially from the lovely Miss Orive (and the actress who dubs her), and the storyline is strictly by-the-numbers porn designed to pander to one of men's less savoury fantasies, but it never really takes itself seriously. Good guys and bad, while drawn with broad strokes, occupy the furthest extremes of each spectrum, so that the bad guy's come-uppance is all the more enjoyable when it arrives. There's acres of female flesh throughout – Orive spends a good 90% of the movie naked, or nearly so – and you will never ever see a greater excuse than the one given in this movie for a couple of hot naked chicks to lick every inch of each other's bodies. Unfortunately, at little more than an hour long, the British DVD has cut a lot of the action, so that UK viewers are left with a collection of scenes that at times seem to have been randomly cobbled together by a bunch of monkeys sitting at typewriters (or something); scenes are abruptly curtailed before they have barely started, and the movie doesn't make a lot of sense at times. So, if this is the sort of flick that floats your boat, seek out the French Region 2 90 minute version. There are no English subtitles but, buddy, you ain't going to care

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.

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.