In A Glass Cage

In A Glass Cage Directed by Agustí Villaronga starring David Sust and Gunter Meisner. (1987).

The kids in Willy Wonka got off easy, especially when you keep in mind that Slugworth of the SS Third Reich fed them into chocolate river tubes, shattered them into a million pieces, burned them alive in furnaces, transformed them into giant blue berries, and raped them in the Wonkavator. They were never injected with gasoline, made to sing cryptically, transformed into mutant punk rats (that's what the girl resembles to me), or strung up and left to rot. One torture isn’t fairer then the next but all of this happens in the film.

            Slugworth worked part time for Wonka, but full time for the Fuhrer as you’ll hear about in Agustí Villaronga’s In A Glass Cage.Gunter Meisner (Slugworth) plays Klaus a Nazi pedophile who after a botched suicide attempt survives and has to serve out the remaining portion of his life in a 

 giant iron lung.

             In the Deep Red review Chas Balun had to watch it in three installments because its harrowing subject matter left him shocked and disturbed. Why he drew it out for that long is beyond me, I ripped that treacherous band aid off in one yank. I was not only shocked and disturbed as well, I kinda hated myself for awhile for not having the same visceral reaction. One time is enough to watch this gem and its doubtful if I will ever see it again. Slugworth’s rival Angelo has a strange relationship of father and tormentor, dominator and slave as Angelo wants to recreate atrocities on other children and reconnect his own catharsis by torturing the innocent for the delight of Slugsey Wugsey. It’s a bit much to say the least! Sexual deviance, medical experiments and vicious cruelty are hard for anyone to take let alone a festival crowd and this film doesn’t fit into an easy category. It’s so controversial, but worth experiencing for its uniqueness and demented style.

We sentence you to die!

 There’s no sympathy or empathy to be handed out to these characters each one should be reviled only the victimized children who are punished on a level of extreme hatred die as innocent casualties in a sense fit of revenge. I wonder if there’s a making of documentary where they interview the kids now and they recount the horrors they went through making this film, still traumatized into adulthood (good thing its fiction)! In the Deep Red review it claims that no children were actually harmed (physically that is). I watched it on Youtube (where it’s since been taken down) so I’m not sure.

 The film is psychologically damaging and in no way on the same schlocky level as the Ilsa series which are fun in their own twisted way. I think my expectations were very keyed up that day and I could handle whatever gruesomeness was hurled my way. Available on Fandor (the bravest streaming service around).
WATCH HERE

            

Theater of Guts 

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