Afraid of being caught with a stash of heroin by the Filipino law enforcement, a drug dealer named "Rudy" (Charlie Davao) slips the package inside a purse belonging to his girlfriend, "Carol Jeffers" (Jennifer Gan). When she is apprehended she remains silent in the naive belief that Rudy will pull some strings and get her released. Instead she is sentenced to 10 years of hard labor in a remote prison deep inside the Philippine jungle. Even then she remains convinced that Rudy will make every effort to get her out. Instead he tries to insure her silence by having one of her cell mates named "Stoke" (Roberta Collins) kill her. If that wasn't bad enough, the main patron named "Alabama" (Pam Grier) takes sadistic pleasure in torturing the inmates and Carol is in her sights. At any rate, rather than spoil the film for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this is essentially a B-grade exploitation film. The acting is second rate and the fight scenes leave much to be desired. Likewise, as in most films of this type one should be aware that there is some nudity and a couple of graphic scenes here and there. Even so, the story flows smoothly and there are some attractive women, most notably Judith Brown (as "Sandy") along with the aforementioned Roberta Collins and Pam Grier to keep things interesting. And while it's certainly not a great film by any stretch of the imagination, it's not necessarily a bad film considering the genre.

Women in Cages is yet another sleazy women in prison film from the same people that brought us classics such as The Big Doll House and The Big Bird Cage. This film is nowhere near as good as those two, but it's still an entertaining effort that fans of this sort of trash will surely appreciate. The plot is just your general women in prison sort of story and, naturally, focuses on a bunch of women inside a women's prison. One in particular has been sent to jail after being set up by her boyfriend; meanwhile, another prisoner has been given the task of murdering said unfortunate prisoner. There's also an escape attempt being plotted. This women in prison film stands apart from many of the others simply because it stars Pam Grier in the role of a guard rather than a prisoner. Naturally, she steps into this role well and plays the antagonist with relish. Unfortunately, there's no role for Sid Haig in this one. The film is directed by Gerardo de Leon, and regrettably he doesn't have the same flair as Jack Hill and the film does fall a little flat in that respect. However, it's still decent enough entertainment and at about seventy five minutes, it doesn't outstay its welcome either. Worth a look.

Jeff is sent to a woman prison, after being caught carrying heroine that belonged to her crime figure boyfriend Rudy. He asks her to keep her mouth shut and would try his best to get her out, but unknowingly to her he has other plans. When she arrives at the prison to do her time, she must face a tyrant of a head warden, Alabama who has a thing against American woman and a sadistic torture chamber of the dark ages called "the playpen" for certain troublemakers.We all know the formula by now for cheap drive-in WIP features, I take it? Wrongly accused woman. Hard labourers work in the fields. Out-of-control cat-fights. Mass showering. Suffering at the hands of the head warden. Harsh terrain surrounding the prison to make it hard to escape. A gusty prison break. And finally those corrupted individuals get their up and comings. So basically the heat is on in the banana republic."Woman In Cages" is another quick, cheaply done Corman production, but this time Jack Hill didn't hold the helm. Instead Gerry De Leon was in the director's chair and he brought to the table a real mean-spirited and quite gloomy Philippine WIP affair. His conventional direction might lack style and cracking energy, but it's balanced out by its intrusive grittiness. The story by James H. Watkins and David R. Osterhout is rather straightforward with little lead way in its same-old-same-old actions and plodding moments, but plenty of sour and quite outlandish moments do occur. The moral card of injustice that leaks its way in comes off as quite silly and lazy. While, there's some slight wit evident, it just seems to get derailed. It mainly concentrates on the unpleasantness and sleazy nature that's drilled in constantly. In the long run these scenes might be effectively crude, but personality does lose out to this rough shtick that really does dry up proceedings. The characters don't feel as dominating; say in "The Big Doll House". Some of the actresses of that film do turn up here. Pam Grier plays the nihilistic lesbian head prison guard with such venom, but this hard-boiled devil woman glow does take away from her energetic persona. The crackling stunner Roberta Collins is in fine form as the on edge drug addict and the gorgeously biting Judith M. Brown also appears. Jennifer Gan was decent in the lead role of the glassily clueless Jeff. Music director Tito Arevalo provides a smoking; on-the-ball soundtrack and Felipe Sacdalan's cinematography methods are unsparingly grounded.Not one of the best of the sub-genre, but well worth a look for the fans for some glorified badass whipping in this mostly dour WIP outing.

Spoilers ahead? I'm going to have to say that `Women In Cages' is a downright ugly film with little redeeming value. In fact, I can't even imagine a Pam Grier fan liking it. The Queen of Blaxploitation is downright bad in this one, and I don't mean baaaad, as in `Coffy,' `Foxy Brown,' and `Scream Blacula Scream.' Her role as a one-dimensional lesbian sadist is just too much, and her death scene (being drowned in a river while raped by a gang of Asian thugs) is unbearable! Outside of that, Jennifer Gan, who plays Jeffries, is so bad you want to lock her in the hole for good and throw away the key! She stands around like the proverbial gentle giant, hovering above the cast like an Amazon, and looks absolutely pathetic (which the audience is supposed to decipher as innocence, dismissing the fact that her boyfriend is a drug-smuggler). Then, the director expects you to believe this whimpering idiot is capable of masterminding a prison break? Outside of a few TV appearances, Gan's acting career got the Electric Chair after this film (her only other flick is `Naked Angels'). and rightfully so! However, Roberta Collins (who played Matilda the Hun in `Death Race 2000') plays Stoke here and does an OK job, especially when juxtaposed against the rest of the cast, including Miss Del Monte Queen of the Philippines Sofia Moran (an actress once dubbed "The Sophia Loren' of the Philippines). Lastly, Judith Brown is especially bad as the back-stabbing junkie!The direction, lighting, and editing are horrible, the acting is three leagues under bad, and the plot, if you can call it that, centers around different ways to get the cast naked, including scenes involving a floating Asian whorehouse boat. It's not even worth a look if you like women-in-prison films, as the nude scenes are pretty drab and unpleasant looking. To its credit, it's only 78 minutes long though, so it's not like you're sitting through `Dances With Wolves' or `Gettysburg.'