Trapped IN A GLASS CAGE (Blu Ray Finally!)

TRAS EL CRISTAL (IN A GLASS CAGE) 1986
D. Agusti Villaronga

CULT EPICS

1:85 Anamorphic

Blu Ray and DVD

There are a lot of movies anymore that claim to be the most disturbing movies of all time. Last year A SERBIAN FILM sexually assaulted audiences, brutalizing them to the point that criminal charges were filed at a film festival in Spain. While that film is everything you have heard and more, it lacks a certain poetry; a lyricism to it's violence. So while A SERBIAN FILM manages to violate you, and scar your psyche, it fails to engage your soul. But there is another film that hit the scene twenty five years about that was the sensation of the time, that did all these things and more. A film that was so shocking when it came out that almost all film festivals refused to play it, leaving only Gay and Lesbian festivals to embrace it, and even there it left audiences shocked and destroyed. But it was horror audiences who found the film through the underground critical writings of Chas Balun who praised the film in his DEEP RED magazine calling it the only film to scar him on a spiritual level.

IN A GLASS CAGE is a film that is so distressing that it is a film that almost has to be confronted as much as watched. But unlike a film like A SERBIAN FILM, this is not simple shock machine, no aggressive attempt to piss in the audience's faces and make them feel sickened and disgusted. IN A GLASS CAGE is an honest attempt to look evil in the face, to explore the circular nature of evil. And even more distressing, it is a really upsetting love story.

The film opens with a scene sure to upset the hell out of those more sensitive types. An old man named Klaus (Gunter Meisner from THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL) has a naked teenage boy strung up in an old stone building. From the old man's behavior it is clear the scene has been that of a sexual nature. Someone is outside of the building watching through the window. The old man takes a two by four and beats the boy to death. He then heads to the roof and throws himself off. But not before who ever was watching could gather the books and diaries scattered about that the man left behind.

The movie proper starts, with credits playing over scenes of young boys in Nazi prison camps, letting us know the scene we had just watched was happening in during World War two. Then the movie picks up eight years later and Klaus is not living in a villa under the care of his wife, maid and young daughter Rena. He is confined to an iron lung due to being paralyzed from his suicide attempt. His wife, who is at the end of her rope from caring for him is in need for a live in nurse. A Handsome young man named Angelo (David Sust) mysteriously appears, and though his wife immediately hates him, he takes the job. Klaus and Angelo seem to share a secret that connect them in the past, and soon Angelo is tearing his way through the family. He begins to sexually abuse Klaus, turn on and off the iron lung, and repeat his more terrifying experiments form the prison camps with children from the surrounding neighborhoods.

The film is a terrifying look at how evil spreads from one incident, i.e. a war, or a moment of unmitigated sexual abuse, and spreads through time like ripples on water. Klaus and Angelo are destined to play out their dance of evil together to the point it almost feels like a love story. But also playing into that is the character or Rena, Klaus young daughter who does indeed fall in love with Angelo, to the point that she clearly sees the awful things he is preptrating in her home, to her Father. That she learns the evil that her Father once was, and that she too will perhaps inherit the cycle.

But make no mistake, IN A GLASS CAGE is no fly by nigh shock machine, it is a measured, thoughtful and at times hauntingly beautiful film that happens to deal with some of the most hopeless and sad material humanity could possibly offer. Agusti Villarongo has fashioned a truly disturbing film, that is also deeply poetic, visually stunning and achingly heartfelt. It is disturbing because it is so damn HUMAN. Human in that it shows the worst the human animal can offer.

Cult Epics new Blu Ray and DVD is a significant upgrade over their previous DVD edition. While that edition was naturally a HUGE step up from the washed out murky VHS available for years, there was some sync issues, and subtitle issues on that previous edition and a distinct lack of extras. This new HD transfer is much cleaner with nice accurate colors (though the black levels seem a little lacking in detail at times to me). The Steel blues and grays are all very well accentuated. The extras include three of Villaronga's older short films and two fascinating and lengthy interviews that shed some light on his goals in making this now infamous film.  

Review © Andrew Copp   

At a time of War, it is time to get busy!

Slaves of the SS (1975) **
This double disc release from POP cinema’s After Hours imprint is most notable for starring “Victor Alexnader” aka Jerry Delony who most cult film fans will recognize as the Sheik in the classick Ilsa Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks (who is NOT Spalding Gray who many, I included, have always claimed played the Sheik). Here he plays one Dr. Cockluv a doctor of the 3rd Reich who is doing sexual experiments on various nubile American and Jewish babes. The movie opens with him screwing some lab equipment in a very sparse lab decorated with flashing lights and cardboard computers. His assistant Franz interrupts him. Franz is played by a woman in glasses and an ill fitting fake mustache. He gives a speech about how he bent over Hitler himself thus the name Cockluv will be remembered! Soon they have captured three female American tourists(!) who will be worked over in the SS lab. But first we are treated to some Nazi sex in what looks like some unrelated super 8 loop that was cut into the film to spice it up since the movie had been on for almost twenty minutes without any hardcore action. Finally Cockluv has a blond American chick strapped down to his operating table and is going to test her threshold with a fuck machine made of some lawnmower motor and a dildo. This thing looks fucking dangerous as it moves slowly towards the camera pounding away, which is why it never actually penetrates the actress, who was probably pretty grateful for that small favor. Instead the Nazi guard goes for it and the sex is pretty hairy butt standard 70’s grinder stuff. The chick is from Texas so she makes funny comments and German music plays over their scene. The guard has the dirtiest feet in cinema history. When they are finished Dr. Cockluv tells Franz to keep an eye on the Texas chick because “Her sexual vibrations could destroy all of the 3rd Reich!” The next Sex scene is with a brown haired gar who has nice boobs and is pretty into it. The Doctor keeps watching through a kaleidoscope so most of the scene is shot through one! Later this same gal will have a lesbian scene with another gall and their double ended dildo action will look more like they are charming a snake than having any kind of sex. The camera keeps zooming in and losing focus too. As the movie reaches the hour mark it hits a climax. You can tell because newsreel footage of the Allies invading Germany has been cut in randomly. This newsreel footage is in way better shape print wise than the rest of the feature too. Then thanks to an added digital explosion the castle of Dr. Cockluv is blown up and the reign of terror is over. The end! A lot of work was clearly done to restore this movie as the 8mm loops were added, as well as the newsreel footage and slight digital work. It is a silly outing never to be taken seriously. You get the feeling the original filmmakers would have been just as at home making a softcore comedy than a hardcore flick. This new edition has been matted to 1.85 for widescreen TV’s and it is overmatted badly. Tops of heads are lopped off all the time along with occasional all important sex shots. There is even a joke where Franz puts the Doctor’s hand on her/his breast that is rendered incoherent because the breast in question is below the bottom matte. The DVD comes with a second feature called Woman of Vengeance which is reviewed below.

Woman of Vengeance (1977) **1/2- This west coast triple-Xer is the second feature in the Sex Slaves of the SS package from After Hours Cinema. While the print is worn to the point of almost being black and white, and is scratched to hell and back it only lends atmosphere to this sleazy little gem. Rick Lutz stars as a bike shop owner whose life sucks shit. His wife is a demonic shrew who just lays there waiting for it to end when they have sex, and criticizes him endlessly the rest of the time. What he doesn’t know is that his buddy/co-worker is banging her behind his back (and has her put on a ratty blond wig so he doesn’t feel so bad about it!). The wife and best pal plan to have old Rick rubbed out by a professional hitman so they can get a wad of insurance money and run off together. Things brighten up a bit when Ricky boy meets a bombshell in the bike shop, played by real life squeeze Rene Bond. Naturally they hit it off and he makes plans to hang out with her and her friends for a couple of days. Finally after almost a half hour into the movie there is some hardcore sex scenes as Bond’s friends start having the beast with two backs. But due to the condition of this ragged print it is unappetizing to say the least. Since all the color is drained from the print except red (which is what happens to prints that have not been stored correctly) When the gal is giving the dude head it looks like she is chewing off his cock! Yikes! Don’t even ask what it looks like when they start fucking. Rene and Rick start getting busy too as they realize they really, really dig each other, and this scene is rather smartly cross cut with a scene of the wife boning the friend. So its the cheating couples getting it on, cross cut together. Somebody making this movie was actually thinking. In fact that is what sets this movie apart. This is surprisingly well made, even though it clearly is shot for pennies, there is some style going on. Such as when the scenes are faded out using what looks to be actual grease pencil lines, but it adds a sort of hardboiled grit to the proceeding. A later scene has the hitman get off the phone with the wife, confirming where Lutz will be for the kill. She has been a particular bitch on the phone. The hitman is looking at Rick’s picture for confirmation of his target and says to himself “Man, why couldn’t it have been you who made the call first?” I won’t spoil the last third as it becomes more apt that the movie should have been called Man of Vengeance. As already stated the print is a wreck and it seems that some of the sound elements are missing too. Some sound effects seem to be absent here and there and at the 18 minute mark the hiss on the soundtrack becomes so loud you almost have to shut it off. Like Sex slaves of the SS this thing has been matted for widescreen TV’s and should not have been. This looks to have been shot on 16mm originally and this matting wrecks the frame continually shaving off chins, tops of heads, necks, and plenty of the sex (which in some cases is a blessing). This matting is a practice I really wish Pop Cinema/After Hours would stop doing. Its better to have the whole picture and have blank space on the sides of your TV, than lose important picture information so someone can fill up there expensive TV frame. Otherwise this is a solid little B movie hiding as the second feature of this set. But then what do I know, this whole generation watches whole movies on You Tube.

I can't find a clip for this set, so here is a clip of 42nd St. Pete explaining all about Grindhouses on 42nd street 9pick up Pete's AWESOME 8mm Stag collections from After Hours Cinemas)

Review © Andrew Copp