RUSSIA 88 (2009)

  Before watching this I guess I never thought about the idea of their being militant neo-Nazi skinhead groups in Russia before but that's what we get here. I probably would have liked this more if it wasn't filmed in that found-footage/shaky-cam style. Obviously influenced by stuff like ROMPER STOMPER(which it name drops), AMERICAN HISTORY X and MADE IN ENGLAND it drags a bit and gets repetitive but is an interesting obscure oddity. 

ILSA: SHE WOLF OF THE SS (1974)

 THE NIGHT PORTER predates this as far a Nazisploitation films go and there were plenty of roughie and porn movies with the same Nazi theme but this is really the one that set the template for all the sleaze and sadism that was to come from this much maligned subgenre. Dyanne Thorne is amazing in the title role of a sexy. castrating, bitchy commander of a prisoner of war camp. Torture abounds, blood flows copiously in what is basically a women(and men)-in-prison movie injected with a large amount of ultra-violence. A true downbeat classic of sick-o cinema!

 There were 2 actual sequels, ILSA, THE HAREM KEEPER OF THE OIL SHIEKS and ILSA, THE TIGRESS OF SIBERIA and 1 sorta sequel, Jess Franco's WANDA THE WICKED WARDEN AKA GRETA THE MAD BUTCHER which was retitled to ILSA, THE WICKED WARDEN to make it part of the series. There was also a planned 4th movie to be called ILSA MEETS BRUCE LEE IN THE DEVIL'S TRIANGLE which was sadly never made. 

HORRIFYING EXPERIMENTS OF S.S. LAST DAYS(1977)

  Best known as THE BEAST IN HEAT this is one those nazisploitation flicks that came out in the wake of ILSA, SHE-WOLF OF THE S.S. and it might be one of the sleaziest of the bunch. Macha Magall, who seems to have specialized in sleazy Italian cinema is our Ilsa stand-in and she spends pretty much the whole movie torturing various captives. This includes castration, water torture, ripping off fingernails and being eaten alive by some pretty calm-looking guinea pigs among other things. Of course the main focus is on Salvatore Baccaro as the title character who has been experimented on in order to become a raping/cannibalistic monster. His hobbies include pubic-hair eating and generally not being very nice to vaginas. There is the expected comeuppance dealt out at the end but still not the most feel-good film. Definitely memorable in it's debauchery though. AKA SS HELL CAMP and SS EXPERIMENT LOVE CAMP 2(making this a sequel to Sergio Garrone's 1976 Nazi movie)  

Video title:

COMMANDO MENGELE "ANGEL OF DEATH" (1987)

  Eurocult director Jess Franco is not really known for his action thrillers and this BOYS FROM BRAZIL-inspired crapfest might be a good example of why. This film deals with some Nazi-hunters looking for the titular Mengele(who is not a commando at all but a doctor who likes to practice horrible experiments on his patients, played by Howard Vernon (who looks and acts nothing like the actual  fellow he's supposed to be portraying)) Jack Taylor is one of the hunters and the rest of the team includes a karate guy, an acrobat, an assassin and a guy who just likes hunting Nazis I think. The main experiments here seem to be Mengele breeding people with monkeys to make some wacky monkey-men. There's very little in the way of sexiness, horror or even much quality action so be prepared for mostly just stupidity.  

 Apparently Franco claimed to have not actually been the director here, but merely the original writer, and assigned the blame to Andrea(BURIAL GROUND) Bianchi. Most pseudonymous credits list the name Frank Drew White as director. It is packed with his usual cast though including even Lina Romay in a very small part. The reality seems to be that Franco started directing and gave up when the producers wanted more of an action flick than he intended.

                                                 Very actiony German video release!:

 

                                                            Mustachioed Polish video!:

Slayer's take on the tale of Mengele!: 

THE TORMENTORS (1971)

 A bit of a misleading poster there since since the bad guys in this are not bikers but a gang of Nazis who ride motorcycles in like one or two scenes but mostly just do naughty Nazi stuff. There are a couple of actual bikers spotted in crowds of hippies at a love-in but I believe there are supposed to be the good guys here. The plot deals with our fascists killing a lady for no apparent reason which leads to revenge time by our hero(William Dooley). There's also a Jesus character called "The Messiah" naturally and a bizarre plan, by the chubby Nazi leader, to murder him and then rule all his hippie(and biker) followers.  I went into this expecting a more straight forward biker flick so it was a bit disappointing. Still has some 70's charm and will probably give you a laugh or two at the least(especially during the fake German accent scenes that come and go). AKA ROGUE VENGEANCE and THE TERMINATORS(I'm pretty shocked to learn that this is not the name of any of the shitty sequels to THE TERMINATOR!)

PRIVATE HOUSE OF THE SS (1977)

 So this strange, seemingly-homosexual, wannabe fuhrer Nazi officer(Gabriele Carrara) sets up a whorehouse towards the end of World War II. Maybe the weirdest thing about this film, which features lotsa Euro-bush and boobs on display, is the whore training sequences which include stuff like leap-frog lessons and gun-fight training which never comes in to play the rest of the film. Obviously this is trash-director Bruno Mattei's version of SALON KITTY minus all the artsy aspects and being a classic. The "beast in heat"(Salvatore Baccaro) from that classic nazisploitation flick THE BEAST IN HEAT puts in a cameo, there's an evil doctor character(Luciano Pigozzi) who looks like Howard Vernon but isn't. There's suicides galore, whippings, beatings, s & m hi-jinks, hinted-at bestiality, sex with a deformed fellow and some classic Bach fugue organ monster music thrown in for good measure. If you're looking for that downer cinema vibe this will be your bag. AKA SS GIRLS

                                 This DVD cover really pushes the doggie sex aspects!:

ANONIMO MORTAL (1972)

 The DVD I have of this uses the way cooler title of SANTO VS. THE NAZIS and that pretty much sums up the plot here. This Santo flick, the 42nd out of a whopping 52 films, plays more like a detective story than an action film for the most part and it is filled with a lot of talky-talk scenes which may lead to drowsiness. Still when we finally get some lucha-libre action(with terribly generic wrestler names like The Nazi and The Pollack) and the big showdown between Santo and these evil Nazis it does make for a campy worthwhile watch. Maybe if the Nazis had built some kinda killer robot or monster it woulda been a bit better.

For all the Spanish-speaking Santo fans!:




                                                   Sadly mundane(and swastika-free) VHS cover:

THE GESTAPO'S LAST ORGY (1977)

 Watching this after seeing THE NIGHT PORTER recently was an interesting exercise in taking the same basic premise and adding a bunch of sleazy, vile elements to it, turning artsploitation into pure trashy Nazisploitation. Comparing the two is like comparing night and day. As with most of the Eurotrash Nazi films this is basically a women-in-prison flick dressed up with swastikas. If you like more stylish cinema Night Porter is for you but if you dig intentionally offensive filth this one is the way to go. Luckily I can appreciate both approaches for different reasons. The laundry list of depravities that you get here include cannibalism, shit-eating, torture, bondage, baby-murder, Jew-murder, animals ripping women apart, acid baths and, of course, the titular orgy which consists of nazis running around raping and beating naked prisoners of war. 120 DAYS OF SODOM seems to also have been an influence for this spectacle. Recommended for sleaze-lovers only. AKA CALIGULA REINCARNATED AS HITLER and LAST ORGY OF THE THIRD REICH



The thing that probably offends me more than anything else in this movie is the horrendously screechy theme song!:

THE NIGHT PORTER (1974)

 It was kinda weird to watch this movie for the first time last night(in a theater on the allegedly only surviving 35mm print in existence) after having seen all the later nazisploitation flicks that came in the years to follow. This is definitely the inspiration for many of those sleaze-epics and one in particular, THE GESTAPO'S LAST ORGY, which is basically a loose-remake with the shock-elements turned up to 11. Compared to those ILSA and company movies this one is pretty subdued and more concerned with the themes of s & m and some allegorical ponderings on coping with World War II. There's even a little touch of CABARET in there with one musical bit. It's very much a beautifully shot art-film that veers more toward the strange and bizarre than the outright disgusting. Then again the idea of a Nazi and a Jewish concentration camp survivor falling in love will probably be seen as pretty offensive all on it's own by many people.  It might move a little slow and be a bit long for the average schlub but I found it a worthwhile viewing experience.

SS CAMP WOMEN'S HELL (1977)

 This isn't one of the best nazisploitation flicks out there but it's also not the worst. It's pretty average in most ways for this sleazy sub-genre. You get the expected women-in-prison touches; multiple shower scenes, big escape scene etc. and then they throw in some torture-porn type stuff with our nazi-doctors setting live women on fire to try and find cures for burns and a few bits that look like they were inspired by MARK OF THE DEVIL including a head-crushing and a tongue-removal. Oh and some actual footage of World War II concentration camps in case you were still in a good mood after all that. In between all this excitement there's boring parts involving a Jewish doctor, rape, abortion and organized prostitution. One memorable scene involves a black prisoner with a strap-on banana pleasing her Aryan captor. At least these movies will never be accused of being too P.C. for anyone. AKA SS CAMP 5: WOMEN'S HELL and SS LAGER 5: A HELL FOR WOMEN.
 Director Sergio Garrone specialized in these lurid nazi/prison films. He also directed SS EXPERIMENT LOVE CAMP and wrote screenplays for a whole slew of women-in-prison films including THE BIG BUST-OUT, HELL BEHIND THE BARS and HELL PENITENTIARY.

WOMEN'S CAMP 119 (1977)

 It's hard to say what is the most depressingly bleak example of the nazisploitation subgenre since none of them are particularly cheery but I would have to think this one has got to be down there around the bottom of the barrel among the most nihilistically-toned, hopeless examples of cinematic sleaze and degradation. Filmed by crapmeister Bruno Mattei the whole film is really just Nazis experimenting on the "lower" races. They're some particularly strange pointless medical experiments including an especially silly one where they try to convert a couple of flamboyant gay fellows. You also get a crazy rapist named Crazy Kurt, a boot licking scene, gang-rape, floggings galore and just general sadism. As is usually the case with Mattei's filmography he attempts to take things to their absurd extreme end and if you're looking for something grim that's what you get here. AKA S.S. EXTERMINATION LOVE CAMP and S.S. EXTERMINATION CAMP

THE SHE WOLF OF SPILBERG (1977)

 If you're gonna rip-off ILSA, SHE-WOLF OF THE S.S. there's a couple of things you might want to include in your movie. For one thing Nazis. The group in this flick act like Nazis and look like Nazis but I guess the filmmakers didn't want to offend anyone by putting swastikas in their movie so they have some weird pyramid thing in their red armbands instead. I'm assuming they're supposed to be just some generic South American fascists which would be fine if you weren't remaking a nazisploitation classic. The other important thing is you might want to make it a brutal movie with some exploitation elements. The only thing this movie has going for it is some boobs and Eurobush. The violence for our women-in-prison here consists of some very mild whipping and ultra-fake-looking rape. Finally, and probably the most important thing, is you would want your lead actress to be somewhat intimidating. Our title character here is about as wimpy an evil sadistic warden of a prison can be. Her main response to insubordination seems to be giving disapproving glances and pouting. This is a far cry from the castrating and completely bad-ass bitchery of the great Dyanne Thorne. If nothing else this movie at least makes me appreciate the ILSA series way more. AKA's= HELGA SHE WOLF OF SPILBERG, GIRL SLAVES & HELGA THE LEATHER MISTRESS

Malissa Longo was also ELSA, FRAULEIN SS which is another crappy nazisploitation flick that ripped-off ILSA in '77)

SHE DEVILS OF THE SS (1973)

                                                  "cleanliness is next to naziness"

Very strange nazisploitation flick made in Switzerland for the German market. The main reason that it seems so strange is because the nazis are seemingly the heroes in this and the Russians are the villians that German girls need to be rescued from. This differs from about 99% of every other movie in this genre. Features a cake decked out in swastikas and a great finale with naked nazi girls running bare-assed naked towards the camera. There's not really much in the way of violence and/or torture usually contained in these types of films, except for some crappy war scenes, it's mostly just worth a watch for the wall-to-wall nudity on display and the weirdness of all the sexual hi-jinks going on.

I can't find the trailer for this anywhere so here's one from SS HELL CAMP instead, which is a way more brutal film made in Italy: