Peter Cushing portrays a seemingly gentle pet shop owner whose sympathetic visits to prison inspire Chuck to set his life straight. When Chuck is paroled, he is offered a job in the dank shop but soon becomes its victim, locked in a secret room, a cage without bars. His very nature dooms him, baited to commit a theft by his criminal impulses and his screams ring loudly from thick walls, freedom an electric discharge. The once friendly mentor is revealed to be a Nazi fugitive from one of the many Death Camps, his cruelty hidden beneath a veneer of aged wisdom. Chuck’s wife falls prey to the fatal trap and together they escape into another private hell, isolated from a world only yards away.
This is a nasty tale of greed and failed salvation, where a criminal momentarily reverts to past behavior and pays an unjust price while his wife becomes collateral damage. Though the sadistic Nazi meets his Munch-like fate, here there are no survivors: only animals in invisible cages.
Final Grade: (B+)
