Digi-Schlock: JACKSON COUNTY JAIL/CAGED HEAT (Shout! Factory DVD)

Shout Factory intro­duced 2-for-1 discs as part of their Roger Corman Cult Classics line last year and they’ve quickly become reli­able win­ners for schlock-DVD fanat­ics, deliv­er­ing value-conscious dou­ble fea­tures of mate­r­ial that have been long out of print (and in some cases never avail­able) on DVD.  A recent pair­ing of Caged Heat and Jackson County Jail is a solid exam­ple of this approach in action: two wor­thy films get an upgrade — in both look and extras — for the price of one cat­a­log title.

Both Caged Heat and Jackson County Jail were sta­ples on VHS and early DVD but both for­mats uti­lized the same soft, weakly-colored open matte trans­fers.  This Shout! Factory disc boasts new anamor­phic widescreen (1.78:1) trans­fers for both titles that rep­re­sent a nice visual upgrade.  Vivid detail and strong col­ors are present in both trans­fers, which will please fans because these are amongst the best-photographed New World films (Tak Fujimoto shot Caged Heat, Bruce Logan did the hon­ors for Jackson County Jail).  Mono sound­tracks are used for both titles:  Jackson County Jail sounds fine but Caged Heat is a lit­tle bit over­mod­u­lated — if you’re lis­ten­ing to it through a home the­ater sys­tem, you might have turn the vol­ume a lit­tle lower than nor­mal to compensate.

The disc also ben­e­fits from some nice extras: there is a trailer for each film (both clas­sic New World-style “hard sells,” par­tic­u­larly the Joe Dante-edited trailer for Caged Heat) and a grind­house expe­ri­ence option that allows view­ers to watch both films back-to-back with vin­tage trail­ers for other Shout! Factory-distributed titles, plus intro cards and an inter­mis­sion spot.  If you’ve got the time to spare, the “Experience” option is the best way to enjoy the films in the spirit they were intended.

There are also brief image gal­leries for both films: the Caged Heat gallery makes exten­sive use of a set of German lobby cards while the Jackson County Jail gallery boasts some nice can­did stills.  Those who don’t have the orig­i­nal DVDs of these titles will be glad to know the brief Roger Corman inter­views (done by Leonard Maltin) from those discs are car­ried over here.

However, the most notable addi­tions to this set in terms of extras are a pair of new com­men­tary tracks.  The Jackson County Jail track fea­tures direc­tor Michael Miller, pro­ducer Jeff Begun and cin­e­matog­ra­pher Logan.  Unfortunately, it’s not all it could be because it is ham­pered by the late addi­tion of a mod­er­a­tor (said mod doesn’t iden­tify him­self but you can tell by voice that he’s one of the Olsen Brothers of Code Red/Scorpion Releasing DVD fame).  He sud­denly pops up around the half-hour mark and dis­tracts the flow of the com­men­tary with ill-timed, some­times sense­less ques­tions: you’re likely to smack your own fore­head when he asks if the per­form­ing the film’s rape scene was dif­fi­cult for the actors!

Thankfully, the film­mak­ers are able to tol­er­ate him and con­tribute some inter­est­ing trivia, like how Corman ini­tially dis­liked the film and how Bruce Logan almost got killed film­ing a car stunt in the film.  That said, the lame mod­er­a­tion is par­tic­u­larly frus­trat­ing as Miller seems game to dis­cuss his artis­tic ambi­tions with this film and a more skilled mod­er­a­tor could have got­ten some mileage out of dis­cussing the film’s oft-subversive com­men­tary on American soci­ety.   If a mod­er­a­tor is going to be as ill-prepared as Olson is here, he’s bet­ter off just sit­ting out of the com­men­tary altogether.

Thankfully, the Caged Heat com­men­tary fares much bet­ter.  This track fea­tures direc­tor Jonathan Demme, cin­e­matog­ra­pher Tak Fujimoto and actress Erica Gavin.  Demme takes the reins from the get-go and dives in with admirable enthu­si­asm for his maiden direc­to­r­ial voy­age, freely con­fess­ing his first-time direct­ing jit­ters and gen­er­ously cred­it­ing every­one who helped him out.  He and Fujimoto freely dis­cuss the influ­ences they used in cre­at­ing the film’s style (every­thing from Sam Fuller to Caged to Marat/Sade).  Film schol­ars will def­i­nitely be happy with this track as they dis­cuss enough ref­er­ences to help the lis­tener put together a nice view­ing list.

Gavin adds the actor’s per­spec­tive, dis­cussing the chal­lenges inher­ent in par­tic­u­lar scenes and prais­ing Demme for being one of the few direc­tors who didn’t ask her to sleep with him for the job(!).  She and Demme also pay trib­ute to sadly-departed costars like Rainbeaux Smith and Roberta Collins.  The end result plays like a lively round­table dis­cus­sion of the film and is likely to please its fanbase.

To sum up, this pair­ing of two New World clas­sics is well worth the time for b-movie schol­ars.  Despite the occa­sional flaw, this disc offers nice look­ing trans­fers and use­ful extra con­tent at a price that’s hard to beat.  If you’re into Corman pro­duc­tions, it’s a safe and worth­while buy.

Jackson County Jail / Caged Heat [Double Feature] Jackson County Jail: A young woman trav­el­ing cross coun­try finds her­self stranded in a remote town after two psy­chotic hitch­hik­ers steal her car. She seeks refuge in a local bar and is thrown overnight in jail where things only get worse. Caged Heat: Traditional sex-and-violence for­mula of babes behind bars, gra­tu­itous nudity and a cor­rupt prison sys­tem trans­formed into rebel burst of girl power! Director Jonathan Demme’s first film.