Caged Fury

MOVIE #1,640 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 05.16.24 WELL, HONG? • CHAPTER 23 Sound the alarm! We’ve got a new genre tag: #women-in-prison. I try to be economical with these labels and there aren’t many sub-genres that I feel warrant their own tag. My criteria more or less boils down to: is there a definitive umbrella genre that also neatly qualifies for [insert film here]? If so, use that. And in the case of Caged Fury (and I assume MANY others), there simply isn’t. The women-in-prison genre is one of the weirdest flavors of cinema you’re ever gonna run across. But it’s also, unmistakably, a thing. These are deeply offensive movies: the ultimate misogynist statement of control over women, fantasies where females literally have no agency and are often subjected to myriad levels of abuse and degradation. It’s not good! This film included. But I feel I have to come at this from an almost anthropological angle: my unpacking and analysis is in no way an endorsement.

This movie is bad in a completely different way than Body Trouble - the first James Hong/Bill Milling collab - mostly because it’s trying to be ‘cool’ while that movie was trying to be funny: both modes can lead to some unintended humor but what we get here (see sampling below) isn't nearly as fun. Part of the reason for this is because Caged Fury (God knows why) has been restored beautifully in 4K while Body Trouble only exists as a very crappy, lingering VHS rip. Although, I'm not a fidelity snob to begin with, and I honestly think that sometimes a bad-looking copy can enhance certain viewing experiences.

I’m by no means attempting to reclaim Caged Fury as some underrated satirical gem, but it's set-up, which involves a very involved scheme wherein a whole bunch of psychos conduct scam casting calls in order to lure women into “white [sex] slavery” (the movie’s own words) complete with head-scratching sham court proceedings and a giant fake prison that is — I kid you not — directly across the street from Grauman's Chinese Theatre, is at least an attempt to do something different with the genre (I assume — I certainly don’t go deep with women-in-prison offerings). It’s mostly because the plotline is so shoddily thrown together, more than anything else (so what I’m saying is, in a sea of shitty remakes and reboots, why not take a stab at Bill Milling’s Caged Fury, Hollywood, and do something interesting — especially given the clear parallels to #MeToo, etc.). But also: it's just so incredibly rapey. This is like a living, breathing trigger warning. And — again — I doubt it's even close to ranking among the worst that this (perhaps the freakiest and most fetishist, quasi-mainstream genre) has to offer.

Still — and I'll stop harping on it soon — the idea that all the bad guys are themselves also (failed, failing and/or frustrated) actors IS interesting! But it almost feels like the film/Milling stumbled onto this angle by accident, because it's sadly not flushed out at all and we're left with lines like “when rape is inevitable, you might as well just lie back and enjoy it” that are simply irredeemable given the lack of context and awareness. Even when classic muscleman Richard Barathy frees all the surviving prisoners by punching and kicking a parade of dudes that just show up out of nowhere (dozens are gunned down in cold blood after a mass execution order only moments earlier — yes, that really happens) the revenge feels shortchanged and barely cathartic.

This is a different kind of #MeToo problem as in I (ME) want TOO much out of a little-known women-in-prison film. Thank you for reading this website.

Anyway, Hong plays a sort of hardboiled detective and he's in two or three scenes max…


Ron Jeremy pops his grimey little head in as a prison guard named "Pizzaface," only to get wasted by Barathy…


Yeah, that's all I got. Did the main girl learn her lesson and leave Hollywood in the end? No, actually she vows to stay and make it as a movie star, which I honestly can't decide if that's a better or worse ending, all things considered. My lingering fascination with this probably has more to do with my lack of knowledge on the genre as a whole. Ultimately it's too unpleasant of a viewing experience to recommend.

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CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ MOVIE #1,639 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,641 ⫸

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Caged Fury is a 1990 women-in-prison film about a group of prisoners who decide to escape from an all-female prison. The film was directed by Bill Milling, and stars Erik Estrada, Richard Barathy and James Hong. It was released on November 21, 1990.