Caged Fear Reviews

If the filmmakers had infused its you-won't-believe-a-minute-of-this storyline with a little more voltage, CAGED FEAR might have been a camp classic. As it stands, this direct-to-video embarrassment offers several attractions for purveyors of the intrinsically stupid. Loyal small-town gal Krissie Bell (Kristen Cloke) takes the rap for her ne'er-do-well fiance Tommy Lang (David Keith), a recent parolee, when, too poor to purchase an engagement ring for his betrothed, he robs the jewelry store instead. Fed up with his reckless behavior, Krissie forces Tommy out of their getaway car, only to find herself quickly in the custody of the local authorities. The gruff men in blue know Tommy's responsible, but when Krissie refuses to implicate him in the botched heist, they throw her in the slammer instead. Fugitive-on-the-lam Tommy hides out from cracker cops while new arrival Krissie is accosted by prison guard Major Ray (Rick Dean), propositioned by an assortment of tough lesbians and attacked for integrating her friendships. In a distinctly farfetched stroke of good fortune, Tommy manages to take advantage of a close encounter with a roving prison warden, Hayes (Ray Sharkey), who conveniently dies while chasing Tommy in his car. Determined to spring his girlfriend, Tommy disguises himself as Warden Hayes in order to infiltrate the prison--and not a moment too soon! Krissie has already broken a cardinal rule by resisting the advances of the sapphic Deputy Warden Charles (Deborah May) and angered the general prison populace by involving herself in a lesbian tug-of-war that ends in homicide. Falling rather easily into the role of peace-keeping guardian, Tommy slips up when he lets a lascivious trustee spot his prison tattoo. By the time Deputy Warden Charles catches on to Tommy's harebrained hoax, Krissie has been sent to the penitentiary version of THE SNAKE PIT and the caged women are seething with revolt. After Tommy risks his life to free Krissie in sick bay, she rushes right back into the fray to be at his side. Tired of her non-stop insults impugning his abilities, Major Ray shoots down Deputy Warden Charles instead of Tommy the ersatz peacekeeper. Temporarily satisfied with Deputy Charles's blood, the inmates return to their cells. Free of bad meals, communal showering and racial discrimination, Krissie drives off with Tommy into the sunset of some scriptwriter's horizon in which the cops are going to forget all about the time Tommy and Krissie have left to serve on their prison sentences. Viewers may be left with the surreal impression that the filmmakers simply took plot elements from classics like CAGED and CAGED HEAT, had them rewritten by comedy writers, and then rewritten again by disgruntled former employees of the State Correctional Board. No style dominates; the tone isn't tongue-in-cheek but the plotting cannot bear the weight of serious examination. If only the movie had stooped to more inspired depths like the scene in which Karen Black caps off her psycho-cameo by peeing on Krissie! Despite her innumerable recent appearances in similarly low-grade fare, this surely marks the nadir of Black's once shining career. The few remaining stalwarts in Black's fan club must be crying out, "No, Karen, it isn't better to keep working!" Return to the stage, become a director through the AFI or guest star on TV's "Murder, She Wrote." No one should diminish their integrity by appearing in roles that force you to piss on another character as well as your fans. (Extreme violence, profanity, nudity, sexual situations.)