Written by: James Bickert and Brian K.
Williams
Directed by: James Bickert
Starring:
Ellie Church as Inga Von Krupp
Tristan Risk as Val
Jett Bryant as himself
Kelsey Carlisle as Penny
Would you believe the first women in
prison movie was nominated for no fewer than three Academy Awards?
The first movie set almost entirely in a women's prison, anyway. By
the time Caged was released
in 1950, movies with incarcerated females as at least a major plot
point had been hitting screens for almost 20 years. Funny that the
genre's first step towards the bottomless chasm of sleaze it would
leap eagerly into feet first in the 1970s also garnered it mainstream
critical praise for the first time.
Men's
magazines, not subject to the same strict regulations as the film
industry, were already delving into full-on exploitation territory
with women in prison stories around the same time. Incarcerated women
enduring human rights violations for the entertainment of the masses
can be traced at least as far back as the 18th
century, with Denis Diderot's novel La
Religieuse
(The Nun
for you non-French speakers) in 1796, but if you want to get
persnickety about it (and I like being persnickety), that's the
beginning of the nunsploitation subgenre and only a close relation of
the standard women in prison flick, which tend to have little or no
religious imagery or themes.
As
the 60's rolled along and censorship restrictions began to roll back,
filmmakers started to get a little more adventurous with the
possibilities of the format. Then in 1969, Jess Franco (because of
course it was Jess Franco) and Harry Alan Towers released 99
Women
to considerable financial success and the floodgates opened. Still
fairly tame by the standards of what would be released less than a
decade later, 99
Women
featured at least embryonic versions of what are now recognizable as
most of the major tropes of the genre.
Once
exploitationeers caught wind of the money to be made, it was off to
the races. Anyone who could get their hands on a camera, a gross
building in a jungle, and a handful of women willing to bare it all
for gold and glory was turning out their own women in prison flick.
Incidentally, did you know that Roger Corman can smell a single penny
on the ground from up to three miles away? Scientific fact. The genre
in its purest form had quite a long run in its original heyday,
finally fizzling out in the early 90s, although its influence can
still be seen today in the popularity of things like Orange
is the New Black.
Like any deliciously icky exploitation subgenre, it still has its
devoted group of degenerate fans, and of course that's why we're here
today.
Penny is a student activist, and she isn't having a very good day. We
meet her chained to two other women, all three of them being hauled
off to jail on trumped up drug charges in the totally not made up
South American nation of Rattica. Judging from the other two women's
reactions to the situation, this isn't their first ride in the clown
car of banana republic justice. Once the women have been issued their
regulation coffee cup, cockroach, and I-can-see-your-labia short
prison dresses, Penny discovers that the surly and unpleasant guards
are going to be far from her biggest problem. The jail is all but run
by badass inmate Val, with Tristan Risk doing her best wild-eyed
sneering Lina Romay impression (her introductory scene is even a
direct reference to Romay's role in Greta the Mad Butcher, and
of course that's far from the last reference to WIP movies that this
genre love letter will serve up).
Elsewhere in the prison, the adorably befuddled Jett Bryant is trying
to figure out just how his last drug smuggling run went so massively
pear-shaped that he wound up as Rattica's latest puppet president,
held under guard by the most laid-back military dictator in history
(imagine Fidel Castro as played by Tommy Chong on sleeping pills and
you'll be getting close to the mark). And because it is a direct
violation of international law to make a women in prison movie and
not have the prison doctor be a sadistic mad scientist, Inga von
Krupp is hosting her old mentor Dr. Greeley (Paul McComiskey from
Dear God No!) to compare notes and see whose method of torture
is the most effective. A fourth subplot involving an American covert
ops organization called KS-13 trying to assassinate Jett Bryant to
destabilize the Rattican government before it can completely recover
from the last coup sort of ambles alongside everything else without
accomplishing much until it's time for everything to come to an
explosive head after 80-or-so minutes of torture and nekkid catfights
and the antics of what is possibly the most lovable duo in
exploitation film history.
I was of two minds when I watched this movie the first time around.
Of course I was excited that some of my favorite indie filmmakers
were doing a women in prison movie, but I think I was expecting
something closer to the 70s filth I'm used to. There is a ton of
humor in this movie, and it rather blindsided me. After watching it
again with the commentary track on, I realized that was precisely the
right choice to make. The world already has one Bare Behind Bars.
What it didn't have until now was an Abbott and Costello style
routine done by a sleepy South American dictator and Zakk Wylde's
cool uncle. Among the goals Bickert stated for making this movie was
doing a WIP flick with no rape in it. That is a welcome omission, and
between that and the humor, this movie becomes something much more
special and interesting and downright fun than it ever could have
been as just another dreary parade of atrocities.
Most of the switches in tone are handled with a deftness that appears
as simplicity on first viewing, but when you see it a couple of times
it becomes apparent just how artfully it's done. Using humor to break
up the brutality also helps to highlight just how good Bickert and
Williams are at the latter as well. Particularly the fight between
Penny and Charli (Alyss Winkler), and the death of Inga von Krupp.
Speaking of Inga, this is a great performance from Ellie Church.
She's definitely the standout actor in the bunch. Inga is obviously
an homage to Ilsa, but there are as many differences as similarities.
Inga is scarier and more driven than Ilsa, less a power-mad sex
predator than a Cenobite. Her obsession with the effects of pain and
pleasure come to a head when she realizes that her time is done, and
her final act is to bond with her torture machine. Church sells the
hell out of the ecstasy she derives from her demise.
Thinking of demises and handling of tone, if I was expecting a whole
movie of 70s film pastiche, the ending makes it very clear they could
have delivered exactly that had they chosen to do so. The haunting,
melancholic feel of the 70s mini-apocalypse ending (I hesitate to
call it a downer, as at least some of the people who deserve to make
it out alive do) is reproduced to perfection. I mentioned Ellie
Church before, but Tristan Risk makes Va's death scene just as
affecting. We got to see a side of Val just minutes before that
showed her cruel nature was a survival instinct brought out by prison
life, and somewhere in all that tough-as-nails armor there was still
a decent person who almost had a chance to see the light again before
the bombs started falling. As we see the characters succumbing to
their fates, the whole thing is set to an eerie, depressive piece of
music not a hundred miles away from Riz Ortolani's Cannibal
Holocaust theme.
Of course with a movie made so quickly for so little money, it's not
entirely a home run. While our stars all bring their A-game, some of
the other performers are awkward and amateurish, and there are some
pretty unfortunate digital effects. I could also have done without
the zombie subplot, as it doesn't really go anywhere or serve any
purpose beyond adding a little extra gore that could easily have been
thrown in without the inclusion of the walking dead. I think it would
have been more interesting to have Inga experimenting on the former
Rattican president while he still had his wits about him and see him
cringing and gibbering in a cage robbed of his humanity. It would
have made her character that much more menacing.
Minor quibbles, all, and things that simply come with the territory
in modern low budget genre movies. There's so much to love here,
because the filmmakers clearly love what they're doing. If they chose
to skimp on a few effects shots to make sure their cast and crew were
well fed and taken care of (which Bickert says on the commentary is
exactly what they did), then more power to them. I've never seen a
movie I didn't like from this bunch, and it's safe to say I'm a fan
for life. Make sure you snag a copy if and when it hits retail, and
keep an eye out on social media so you can back their next
Kickstarter project and get in on the fun!
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