This film turned up on local TV here in South Africa recently and I thought that I'd warn even those who enjoy watching B grade bad movies (which I do)that this is not even amusing. The plot concerns a couple visiting a house in the country. Some strangers appear and .... The problem is that most of the film, obviously shot in the early seventies, consists of extreme wide shots of people walking, in real time and awfully slowly, from A to B. This makes the film tedious in the extreme and the expected blood and gore payoff just never happens. I am really curious - how many people have actually watched this from beginning to end?
12 Reviews
There Is No Terror So Great...
m10rda15 June 2000
I used to review videos for Joe Bob Briggs' legendary "We Are The Weird" newsletter. I saw a lot of stinkers, but this by far was the worst, and the years have not been kind - it remains the most indecent crime against cinema I have ever witnessed. Don't get me wrong - CAGED TERROR is nominally more technically competent than, say, MONSTER-A-GO-GO or THE GUY FROM HARLEM or something of that ilk. What solidifies its claim as Worst Movie Of All Time for me is its unique blend of bare proficiency with crippling pretension. Is it a Vietnam commentary? An ecological protest? An incitement to race riot? A study of man's inhumanity to man? A novel exercise in padding nature footage out to (nearly) feature length? In short: a hep young urban professional (possibly the most loathesome screen character ever) somehow seduces a nubile Asian-American associate into camping in the woods with him. After brow-beating her with quasi-philosophical clap for the better part of an hour, they run across two wandering veterans, the unforgettable Jarvis (a righteous brother) and the Troubadour (guitar-toting Manson Family reject). Hey, a plot twist! Tension! Action! Suspense! Well, no, just a climactic getting-locked-in-a-makeshift-wire-chicken-coop-and-lightly-belittled scene. The victim in question stares listlessly at the captors and mutters, "No... no... please... don't..." Meanwhile, Jarvis addresses the Troubadour as "Trouby" once every two minutes, bringing to mind nothing so much as the alien star of Juan Picquer's POD PEOPLE. That's about all that happens in CAGED TERROR, and such a synopsis perhaps makes it seem almost tolerable. But trust me, I've seen thousands of movies in my life, and this one has remained, for the past eight years since I first saw it, the absolute worst. (I pop it in the old VCR once every two years or so just to reassure myself, and reassure myself I certainly do.) I think the element which makes CAGED TERROR so particularly hateful is this: very little happens, and although what little does happen happens quite poorly and quite slowly, what truly makes it compulsively unwatchable is the suffocating sense that the filmmakers REALLY, REALLY WANT to shove some kind of message down your throat. But because CAGED TERROR is so incompetent and ineffectual, what was intended as a civics lesson becomes a crash course in intense viewing discomfort. This film is 75 minutes long and feels like three and a half hours. It's terrible, truly truly terrible. Folks, trust me, I saw GHOSTS THAT STILL WALK and this one is worse. Go see it! You'll thank me. And curse me. Just for the record, my favorite line: (In CAGED TERROR but perhaps EVER) "Yeah, well, you probably think the Song of Solomon was an allegory for Christ's love for the church...!" (NOTE: Must be delivered in a tone of concerted condecension.)
rock bottom
jonathan-57719 May 2008
When I was in school I made a film about a couple roaming around in the trees and talking, and I realized halfway through editing that this was not just a failing aesthetic strategy but a cliché of Canadian cinema: sodden lyricism married to vacant, metaphor-burdened stabs at social commentary. But whatever my own film's failings I feel much better after seeing this...this...thing. For one thing, mine ran 20 minutes, not 85, and had more content at that: every pointless bit of business here is fawned over for four, five, six relentless minutes. The male lead is just incredible, a brow-beating, loudmouthed creep given to outbursts of drama-class improv in between philosophical insights culled from the U of T pub, and he is given lots and lots of space to make us hate him. Admittedly if he weren't such an a**hole then the third act would make even less sense, as a couple snarky dudes show up to provide distant and thoroughly unhelpful echoes of 'exploitation' values; but it doesn't make it any easier to watch the caged creep whimper "please" in closeup until the magazine runs out. I take back what I said about AUTUMN BORN, which at least had the courage of its own misbegotten lechery: this cinematic crater is and will remain the very worst Canadian movie of all time. At least, I really really hope so.
Bergmanesque film is not at all Bergmanesque, and barely a film!
EyeAskance2 February 2004
Without question one of the most embarrassing productions of the 1970s, CAGED TERROR reveals a curious determination to become something insightful or important as it reaches in futility for a leg of Bergman's monogram earthy key elements. The tragic upshot is such a wispy, self-aggrandizing display of thin air that it nearly succeeds as a Bergman lampoon. To its credit, however, it does have a nice look to it, being artfully lensed in scenic woodsy environs. Also, it's as relaxing as two glasses of wine and half a Quaalude.
The story(?) denotes the budding romance of a young hippie city couple as they spend a sunny afternoon making the nature scene in a deep forest. They walk along a shady path, apparently desperate to outdo each other in a bizarre duel of random verbal evasions. They exchange bits of insanely over-the-top, lofty discourse which sound like the idle chatter of a U.C. Berkeley coffee klatsch...you'll be howling over tarradiddle such as "I feel that life itself is made up of as many tiny compartments as this pomegranate....but is it as beautiful?". Following what seems like an eternity of this grandiose sermonizing and a noticeable lacking of occurrences, we succumb to a VERY anticlimactic confrontation involving a pair of folk-singing 'Nam vets who proceed to lock our non-hero inside a chicken-coop while having-at-it with his girl.
Aside from some obligatory nudity and soft sex, nothing eventful or interesting happens IN THIS ENTIRE FILM, and its enfeebled crusade to draw the viewer "into a brown study" is strained and insincere. I thought the Larry Buchanan picture STRAWBERRIES NEED RAIN(1970) was a weak example of a Bergman homage...CAGED TERROR is somehow worse than that film, largely due to the ceaseless onslaught of flatulent verbiage.
1.5/10...one of the worst films I've seen in my entire pomegranate.
The story(?) denotes the budding romance of a young hippie city couple as they spend a sunny afternoon making the nature scene in a deep forest. They walk along a shady path, apparently desperate to outdo each other in a bizarre duel of random verbal evasions. They exchange bits of insanely over-the-top, lofty discourse which sound like the idle chatter of a U.C. Berkeley coffee klatsch...you'll be howling over tarradiddle such as "I feel that life itself is made up of as many tiny compartments as this pomegranate....but is it as beautiful?". Following what seems like an eternity of this grandiose sermonizing and a noticeable lacking of occurrences, we succumb to a VERY anticlimactic confrontation involving a pair of folk-singing 'Nam vets who proceed to lock our non-hero inside a chicken-coop while having-at-it with his girl.
Aside from some obligatory nudity and soft sex, nothing eventful or interesting happens IN THIS ENTIRE FILM, and its enfeebled crusade to draw the viewer "into a brown study" is strained and insincere. I thought the Larry Buchanan picture STRAWBERRIES NEED RAIN(1970) was a weak example of a Bergman homage...CAGED TERROR is somehow worse than that film, largely due to the ceaseless onslaught of flatulent verbiage.
1.5/10...one of the worst films I've seen in my entire pomegranate.
Dumb Hippies Gone Wild!
aaronmocksing198722 September 2010
Would you like my honest opinion? I bought this for the sex scene.
This movie brings up an interesting question. Unlike a lot of other bad movies that seem to bring up suspension of disbelief, this one is very interesting: 'Why is there a cage in the middle of nowhere? Why did the hippies go into the cage? ...Why were they stupid enough to get locked into the cage?' Okay, so maybe there are a lot of questions.
I'm not sure what this movie is trying to be - it's either an artistic movie that was accidentally placed and billed as a horror movie, or a horror movie that was accidentally labeled as an art movie, or maybe it's just someone's home movie that somehow got distributed. Who knows.
Rest assured, when this movie was over - I pulled a John Belushi of 'Animal House' and smashed it against the wall like he did with that one dude's little guitar.
"Sorry."
This movie brings up an interesting question. Unlike a lot of other bad movies that seem to bring up suspension of disbelief, this one is very interesting: 'Why is there a cage in the middle of nowhere? Why did the hippies go into the cage? ...Why were they stupid enough to get locked into the cage?' Okay, so maybe there are a lot of questions.
I'm not sure what this movie is trying to be - it's either an artistic movie that was accidentally placed and billed as a horror movie, or a horror movie that was accidentally labeled as an art movie, or maybe it's just someone's home movie that somehow got distributed. Who knows.
Rest assured, when this movie was over - I pulled a John Belushi of 'Animal House' and smashed it against the wall like he did with that one dude's little guitar.
"Sorry."
The worst film I have ever seen.
MaGuFu_Day27 April 2002
I saw this movie a couple years back. I could'nt sleep and there was nothing on. So I peeped it. What really gets me is it makes no sense and thats why its disturbing. Richard gets tied up in chicken wire and Jarvis starts making out with Richard's girl while she's unconscious. Then Jarvis's buddy Troubador is playing some stupid song on his guitar. By the next morning it shows Richard's girl talking to Jarvis and Trouby and then she walks back to Richard and looks at him while he's still tied up. Then they play some happy music and the movie is finished. I mean what happened? Did they brake up? And what was she saying to those 2 guys(Trouby and Jarvis)? Its to puzzling and to poor to. I can't stand movies that are disturbing and don't make sense. This was the worst film i've ever seen since the 90's version of Lord of the Flies.
The outwitting of the wily trout
JohnSeal24 November 2008
Warning: Spoilers
This is a film of many parts. Unfortunately, most of those parts don't seem to fit together very well, and some of them are distinctly out of place. Written, produced, and directed by Barrie McLean and Kristen Weingartner, Golden Apples of the Sun (or, as it is more commonly known, Caged Terror) plays like a piece of improvisational theatre shot in the backwoods of Quebec. Elizabeth Suzuki and Peter Harkness star as Jan and Richard, a pair of big city kids who decide to get back to nature by going for a hike in the woods. Here they encounter some impressive nature photography courtesy Roger Moride, best known for shooting that Neil Sedaka slasher flick, Playgirl Killer. The countryside looks beautiful, but Suzuki and Harkness are strictly amateur hour, and things really get a bit awkward when Galt McDermott's jazzy score kicks in (as performed by Bernard 'Pretty' Purdie and his band). It's a fine score, but makes no sense in this setting. Meanwhile, loners Jarvis and The Troubadour (Derek Lamb and Leon Morenzie) are also wandering the woods with their guitars and ponchos, but our four protagonists don't meet up until long after Suzuki and Harkness engage in a little softcore saturnalia and then discover an abandoned house deep in the woods. In fact, the first hour of the film is terribly, terribly earnest, with all sorts of cod philosophy offered as deep thoughts by Jan and Richard. Things then take a turn for the exploitative after Richard decides to take a crap, at which point Jarvis and The Troubadour show up and start flashing back to their time in 'Nam. After an unfortunate misunderstanding involving a gun, the film reaches its climax with violence-prone Richard being locked inside a big bird cage, though not the kind Roger Corman was familiar with. This baffling film defies categorization and criticism: I could just as easily give it a 2 as an 8, so I'm going to take the coward's way out and give it a 5. I can safely claim that there's no other film quite like Golden Apples of the Sun, but the closest I can get is Garson Kanin's extremely underrated post-Vietnam War drama The Visitors.
Caged Garbage - Are you serious?
gilfrd19 December 2010
Since the lowest option is a rating of 1, that's what it gets but it deserves far, far less. This movie is unadulterated crap. Zero plot, zero horror, zero acting. To put it simply, it sucked mule.
The "cage" is a dilapidated, falling apart, outdoor, chicken wired cage and one person was tied loosely with twine as his girlfriend got busy with their abductors. The ending was non-existent as the movie should be.
If you watch this movie trust me when I say you will be begging for that slice of your life back, currently I am flogging myself for the poor judgment in deciding to "check it out". Life is precious, too precious to throw away on this flick.
One positive note, the location was nice. I plan scathing emails to the actors, directors and producers of this film for creating it. Shame on them.
The "cage" is a dilapidated, falling apart, outdoor, chicken wired cage and one person was tied loosely with twine as his girlfriend got busy with their abductors. The ending was non-existent as the movie should be.
If you watch this movie trust me when I say you will be begging for that slice of your life back, currently I am flogging myself for the poor judgment in deciding to "check it out". Life is precious, too precious to throw away on this flick.
One positive note, the location was nice. I plan scathing emails to the actors, directors and producers of this film for creating it. Shame on them.
An unjustly vilified,debased little gem.
chafdeneg24 July 2005
At first,this movie seems so bad that i almost fell in a trance the first time i saw it.It was like a bad dream.A cosmic bore.But i gave it a second chance,then another and another,etc...I finally got addicted to this film,due to it's dreamlike slow pace,wonderful natural sets,bathed in a mellow autumn light and especially the musical score,which is made of some 70's progressive rock and absolute exquisite folk songs by actor/singer/songwriter Derek Lamb(the Troubadour).You should notice the song about hazel wood,silver trout and lady vanishing in the air...,heard in the middle and near the end of the film.There are some carnal scenes in the beginning ,wich allow us to appreciate the natural charms of Elizabeth Suzuki.If that movie had been made by some "repertoire" directors like Bergman,Lars Von Triers or Jean-Luc Goddard,critics would have rolled on the floor,raving about that movie as if it were a cosmic masterpiece.I personally think this film is one million times superior to any of Fellini's cinematic sh#¤@t!Definitely not for the pretentious.
This movie was strangely compelling! :)
lonewolf820002 August 2002
When I watched this film the first time, it was a taped copy and the title was/is Caged Terror. I still own the tape, and I confess, I've watched it more than once from beginning to end! The film is extremely low budget and the dialogue is often unintentionally amusing! I have gotten a few of my friends to watch this and we've had some great laughs from the terrible script. The film concerns a couple, (remember this is like early 70's so they are just too hip man!) who go on a week-end camping trip in what I believe was supposed to be upstate NY. They have some hilarious dialogue after catching and eating a fish and the girl bemoans the death of the fish and that they ate it! The guy comes back with something goofy about how they ate the fish and now it was a part of them, and he goes; "And that's beautiful man!" Heavy man, really heavy! LOL! Anyway, along come a couple of Vietnam vets, one of who plays the flute, I believe. (At any rate they are musical fellows!) The guys are clearly attracted to the girl and when the couple prove unfriendly, they end up terrorizing them during the night. The guy ends up caged in a chicken coop, and has to watch his girl friend being ravished by the two guys. Actually, by the end of the night, she seems to be pretty into it, and when morning comes, the guys leave and the girl and guy are free to leave. Supposedly the guy has learned a lesson about how to treat people, and the girl has a smile on her face! :) Anyway, I would recommend this film highly to anyone looking for a damn good laugh! It never fails to amuse me anyway! If I could find this on DVD and replace my old tape copy, I'd actually buy it again, it's classic camp! You gotta love this stuff!
Is it even a film?! *SPOILERS*
anxietyresister23 March 2005
Warning: Spoilers
I can only echo what everybody else here has already said, in that this is one of the most pointless releases ever to see the inside of the cinema. We have a couple of hippies who obviously love each other very much, since they seem to spend every waking hour together talking gobble-de-gook ( about life and the trees, man!), catching fish and prancing about the countryside naked. This goes on for the first hour of the movie, with no respite whatsoever. How on earth did they manage to get funding for such a worthless premise? This is like seeing somebody's boring camcorder holiday videos.. only this time you have to pay for the privilege. Then we get lots of tinkly folk music complete with stock footage of the great outdoors, as the audience slowly loses the will to live.
For those who can last the pace (HOW?!) we finally have a bit of excitement in the final reel as the bloke is tied up in the chicken coop(Yipe!) by a couple of hoodlums intent on kidnapping his girl. Can he get free and rescue her? Or will he be killed by their dreadful guitar-strumming first? Quite frankly, who gives a monkey's. Next up: The director, 30 years on, tries to escape the clutches of an angry patron who wants to take out 80 minutes of wasted time on his head. Now THAT would be a sequel worth seeing.. 0/10
For those who can last the pace (HOW?!) we finally have a bit of excitement in the final reel as the bloke is tied up in the chicken coop(Yipe!) by a couple of hoodlums intent on kidnapping his girl. Can he get free and rescue her? Or will he be killed by their dreadful guitar-strumming first? Quite frankly, who gives a monkey's. Next up: The director, 30 years on, tries to escape the clutches of an angry patron who wants to take out 80 minutes of wasted time on his head. Now THAT would be a sequel worth seeing.. 0/10
The worst film ever
bearsfan19 May 2004
Watching paint dry is more compelling and twice as engaging. An academy award should be given to anyone who can sit through this snooze fest with out yawning. If Seinfeld was a television sitcom about nothing, then this was the movie about nothing. Unlike Seinfeld however this film did not have great writing and acting to make it work. Within the first five minutes I had the feeling that I was watching a movie made by four people with nothing else to do one afternoon. There is no plot! The viewer is left to guess what the plot was so as to justify the time wasted in watching. The acting is bad; no it would have to improve to be bad. Elizabeth Suzuki gets naked but even that was ruined by poor filming. I would recommend this film be required viewing for film students. It would prove that no matter how bad your student projects suck, there is always something worse that went straight to video.
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