Caged Women in Purgatory (1991)

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

This film was released on NTSC VHS videotape in North America by Videoville Showtime Film Distribution in 1993 with the title ....Q.H.S....(QUARTIER HAUTE SECURITE POUR FEMMES) .....It had a small distribution in Quebec and the French speaking areas of Eastern Canada and the northeastern USA....There is no DVD version......It was released in French Language with no English Subtitles.....It is no longer In Print and is rarely seen in French Canadian video stores.....the Ex-Rentals are generally poor quality and and the original tape has often been replaced.....Best to find one with Good Picture Quality........It was released with a French language jacket with a photograph of a beautiful woman tied to a big X......Directed by Leandro Lucchetti and stars Pilar Orive, Isabel Lissobart, Elena Wiedermann....the run time of the North American release is 1 hour 30 minutes.....Extensive Female Nudity and Bizarre Sexual Situations........Caged Women - Le Prede Umane.......A prime example of a European "beautiful women-in-prison" film. This one is one of the best....A Good Italian Cult women-in-prison film...............Similar to 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 too serious ......Very beautiful women....well photographed....

Yes- this IS the best WIP film ever made. I know that Jess Franco did some hotties, but this take the genre Oscar for its combination of sensuality, brutality and downright steaminess.The UK censors murdered this film on certification, and many of us pondered long and hard what was behind the voids and sharp edits that their pointless activities had generated. It was released under the title "Caged Women", but is also known as "Caged - Le Prede Umane" and "QHS" (Quartier Haute Sécurité- French DVD title). It is the French title you need if you want to see this film in all its 90m uncut glory.Pilar Orive, a former Miss Spanish Basque Country, is utterly magnificent as the abused heroine. She is both Amazonian and completely transfixing, and it stirred my teenage heart (and other bits) when released in 1992. That she and many of the cast are stark naked throughout the film is a plus rather than any sort of negative.Its works for me- and I promise will work for you.....

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

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.