Directed by:
Jonathan DemmeScreenplay:
Jonathan DemmeCinematography:
Tak FujimotoComposer:
John CaleCast:
Roberta Collins, Barbara Steele, George Armitage, Carmen Argenziano, Cheryl Smith, Juanita Brown, Erica Gavin, Joe Viola, Leslie Otis, Mike Shack (more)VOD (1)
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Jonathan Demme made his directorial debut with this irreverent, politically-charged entry in the 1970s women-in-prison film genre. It stars Roberta Collins, Ella Reid, and Rainbeux Smith as sex-starved inmates who befriend newcomer Jackie (Erica Gavin) at a Connorville women's prison. Their daily routine involves lots of showering, catfights, and drag performances, interrupted by occasional electro-shock treatments and other "corrective therapies" courtesy of wheelchair-bound warden McQueen (Euro-horror icon Barbara Steele). Eventually the girls escape, go on a crime spree, and then return to bust out their sisters in a ferocious hail of bullets. Demme delivers all the requisite nudity and perversion but adds a lot more as well, including bizarre dream sequences (McQueen's CABARET-style bathroom performance is a highlight), feminism, elaborate tracking shots, documentary-style realism, and even some rudimentary character development. Caged Heat manages to be in on its own joke while still delivering the payload of gratuitous flesh that fans of this sort of film expect. (New Concorde Home Entertainment)
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Caged Heat is a Corman-esque B-movie with bare breasts and action. With his debut, The Silence of the Lambs director Jonathan Demme tried to make a guilty pleasure, but he held too tightly to the leash (there is no rape, gore, revenge motif or any attempt to shock) to make an honest grindhouse flick that could have been interesting in the intentions that you would expect from it. And for a low-key adventure flick that could be taken at least a bit seriously, it was filmed in a trashy manner, with cheesy dissolves and an even cheesier soundtrack. And then there’s the comical overacting. Bullshit.
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