Caged Terror (Golden Apples of the Sun) (1973)

This is a film of many parts. Unfortunately, most of those parts don't seem to fit together very well, and some of them are distinctly out of place. Written, produced, and directed by Barrie McLean and Kristen Weingartner, Golden Apples of the Sun (or, as it is more commonly known, Caged Terror) plays like a piece of improvisational theatre shot in the backwoods of Quebec. Elizabeth Suzuki and Peter Harkness star as Jan and Richard, a pair of big city kids who decide to get back to nature by going for a hike in the woods. Here they encounter some impressive nature photography courtesy Roger Moride, best known for shooting that Neil Sedaka slasher flick, Playgirl Killer. The countryside looks beautiful, but Suzuki and Harkness are strictly amateur hour, and things really get a bit awkward when Galt McDermott's jazzy score kicks in (as performed by Bernard 'Pretty' Purdie and his band). It's a fine score, but makes no sense in this setting. Meanwhile, loners Jarvis and The Troubadour (Derek Lamb and Leon Morenzie) are also wandering the woods with their guitars and ponchos, but our four protagonists don't meet up until long after Suzuki and Harkness engage in a little softcore saturnalia and then discover an abandoned house deep in the woods. In fact, the first hour of the film is terribly, terribly earnest, with all sorts of cod philosophy offered as deep thoughts by Jan and Richard. Things then take a turn for the exploitative after Richard decides to take a crap, at which point Jarvis and The Troubadour show up and start flashing back to their time in 'Nam. After an unfortunate misunderstanding involving a gun, the film reaches its climax with violence-prone Richard being locked inside a big bird cage, though not the kind Roger Corman was familiar with. This baffling film defies categorization and criticism: I could just as easily give it a 2 as an 8, so I'm going to take the coward's way out and give it a 5. I can safely claim that there's no other film quite like Golden Apples of the Sun, but the closest I can get is Garson Kanin's extremely underrated post-Vietnam War drama The Visitors.

When I was in school I made a film about a couple roaming around in the trees and talking, and I realized halfway through editing that this was not just a failing aesthetic strategy but a cliché of Canadian cinema: sodden lyricism married to vacant, metaphor-burdened stabs at social commentary. But whatever my own film's failings I feel much better after seeing this...this...thing. For one thing, mine ran 20 minutes, not 85, and had more content at that: every pointless bit of business here is fawned over for four, five, six relentless minutes. The male lead is just incredible, a brow-beating, loudmouthed creep given to outbursts of drama-class improv in between philosophical insights culled from the U of T pub, and he is given lots and lots of space to make us hate him. Admittedly if he weren't such an a**hole then the third act would make even less sense, as a couple snarky dudes show up to provide distant and thoroughly unhelpful echoes of 'exploitation' values; but it doesn't make it any easier to watch the caged creep whimper "please" in closeup until the magazine runs out. I take back what I said about AUTUMN BORN, which at least had the courage of its own misbegotten lechery: this cinematic crater is and will remain the very worst Canadian movie of all time. At least, I really really hope so.

Without question one of the most embarrassing productions of the 1970s, CAGED TERROR reveals a curious determination to become something insightful or important as it reaches in futility for a leg of Bergman's monogram earthy key elements. The tragic result is such a wispy, self-aggrandizing display of thin air that it nearly succeeds as a Bergman lampoon. To its credit, however, it does have a nice look to it, being artfully lensed in scenic woodsy environs. Too, it's as relaxing as two glasses of wine and a Quaalude.The story(?) denotes a city couple in an early stage of budding romance enjoying a day in the wilderness. They walk along a shady path, apparently desperate to outdo each other in a bizarre duel of random verbal evasions. It's quite something, really...these characters hurl bits of insanely over-the-top, lofty discourse which sound like the idle chatter of a U.C. Berkeley coffee klatsch...you'll be howling over tarradiddle such as "I feel that life itself is made up of as many tiny compartments as this pomegranate....but is it as beautiful?". After what seems like an eternity of this grandiose sermonizing and a noticeable lacking of occurrences, we are presented a VERY anticlimactic confrontation involving a pair of folk-singing 'Nam vets. Aside from some obligatory nudity, nothing eventful or interesting happens IN THIS ENTIRE FILM, and its enfeebled crusade to draw the viewer "into a brown study" is strained and insincere. I thought the Larry Buchanan picture STRAWBERRIES NEED RAIN was a weak example of a Bergman homage...CAGED TERROR is somehow worse than that film, largely due to the ceaseless flatulent verbiage.1.5/10...one of the worst films I've seen in my entire pomegranate.

When I watched this film the first time, it was a taped copy and the title was/is Caged Terror. I still own the tape, and I confess, I've watched it more than once from beginning to end! The film is extremely low budget and the dialogue is often unintentionally amusing! I have gotten a few of my friends to watch this and we've had some great laughs from the terrible script. The film concerns a couple, (remember this is like early 70's so they are just too hip man!) who go on a week-end camping trip in what I believe was supposed to be upstate NY. They have some hilarious dialogue after catching and eating a fish and the girl bemoans the death of the fish and that they ate it! The guy comes back with something goofy about how they ate the fish and now it was a part of them, and he goes; "And that's beautiful man!" Heavy man, really heavy! LOL! Anyway, along come a couple of Vietnam vets, one of who plays the flute, I believe. (At any rate they are musical fellows!) The guys are clearly attracted to the girl and when the couple prove unfriendly, they end up terrorizing them during the night. The guy ends up caged in a chicken coop, and has to watch his girl friend being ravished by the two guys. Actually, by the end of the night, she seems to be pretty into it, and when morning comes, the guys leave and the girl and guy are free to leave. Supposedly the guy has learned a lesson about how to treat people, and the girl has a smile on her face! :) Anyway, I would recommend this film highly to anyone looking for a damn good laugh! It never fails to amuse me anyway! If I could find this on DVD and replace my old tape copy, I'd actually buy it again, it's classic camp! You gotta love this stuff!