mjneu59 Review of In a Glass Cage

In a Glass Cage (1986)

hard to sit through, even harder to forget

[5/10 · 28 November 2010]

Discriminating viewers might be excused for wishing this disturbing Spanish feature weren't so well made, because then it could be dismissed as merely gratuitous exploitation. The story concerns an aging, exiled Nazi prison camp doctor confined in a mechanical lung while his male 'nurse' tortures them both by recreating, with a mounting sense of dread and claustrophobia, the atrocities his invalid patient once performed, slowly turning their villa into his own private death camp. The style of the film is not unlike an old-fashioned monster movie, but sensitive patrons should be strongly cautioned: it confronts us with depravity in much the same way as the disturbed young Angelo confronts the helpless doctor with the crimes of his past, putting the viewer in the uncomfortable position of being a willing participant in crimes against humanity.