a.k.a. Women's Penitentiary 3

Directed by: Gerardo de Leon
Cast: Jennifer Gan, Pam Grier, Judy Brown, Roberta Collins

I don't know if it's the lush locations, dark lighting, or the bustin out all natural vixens, but I sure do like these early 70's Corman produced Filipino flicks. This one starts off at a floating brothel called the Zulu Club. We see some some smack exchange hands, and eventually wind up on the mainland at a cockfight.

The suave Rudy is in possession of the narcotics, and when the heat gets to thick he dumps it into the purse of his naive girlfriend played by homely actress Jennifer Gan. Rudy convinces her to remain quiet, and the love struck dope gets sentenced to 10 hard ones in tuna town. In a WIP film role reversal, Pam Grier shows up as the lesbian Chief Matron named Alabama. An ex-American who got fed up by the racism in the US, and ended up muff torturing inmates in a room she calls the Playground. While torturing an inmate Alabama tells her, "I was hooked on smack at 10, and turned out at 12. You've got a lots of catching up." In the Playground, Alabama straps the young naked girls into a combination rack and lead shoes that cause them to do a split over an open flame! Other gleefully administered tortures are a spinning wheel with branding iron, electroshock harness, and "The Hole" complete with leeches.

Grier fans will want to see this flick because there are several scenes of her nude, and one in particular has lesbo action that turns into rough S&M! The story follows Gan, but she is the least interesting of the inmates. Roberta Collins pretty much steals the show as a junkie inmate trying to off Gan for the paranoid Rudy. Getting her next fix relies on the demise of Gan, and it's fun to watch her suffer through the DT's after each botched attempt. Poisoned sandwiches, poisonous snakes, knife attacks, and acid, no matter how she tries to kill her it is always bungled by Gan's dumb luck.Things get really wild when Collins gets a tommygun in her hands and starts smoking people while going through withdrawals!

This all leads to a better than usual bust out, anasty demise for Grier, and a twisted downbeat surprise ending. Despite all it has going for it Women In Cages lacks the smart writing of the Jack Hill Filipino films, and Sid Haig is greatly missed. You can even tell that Grier is a little weak here, and botches a few lines during the film. I have a feeling that this may be due to a low shooting ratio, and neither the director or actresses is at fault. Even though the day for night scenes are incredibly inconsistent, the film is nicely saturated with great dark tones inside the atmospheric prison. The jungle and sugar cane locations help add a desperate feeling that is absent from the "_____ Heat" films set in an urban prison. These film are great at capturing another level of conflict the inmates must overcome once they get outside the prison. Not only must they face bandits, bounty hunters, snakes, and then make it off the island, but they must do it barefoot! This convention helps add another level of conflict, and brings in some entertaining adventure elements. The Corman Filipino films really captured this well, and Women In Cages is a fine addition to these undercranked catfight jungle extravaganzas.