Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS- Nazisploitation at its Finest

Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS is perhaps the definition of an exploitation film. It is a gory, violently sexual made expressly for the purpose of giving the audience a cheap and shocking thrill, yet still attempting to drape itself in the paper thin masquerade of being a serious expose of the atrocities of the past.

You can see this right at the beginning of the picture when a message from Herman Traeger, the film’s producer: The film you are about to see is based on documented fact. The atrocities shown were conducted as ‘medical experiments’ in special concentration camps throughout Hitler’s Third Reich. Although these crimes against humanity are historically accurate, the characters depicted are composites of notorious Nazi personalities; and the events portrayed have been reduced into one locality for dramatic purposes. Because of its shocking subject matter, this film is restricted to adult audiences only. We dedicate this film with the hope that these heinous crimes will never occur again. 

Directly after this high minded statement, we move into a sex scene where the incredibly buxom Ilsa is grinding away on a male prisoner whom she then orders to be castrated as punishment for not being able to satiate her nymphomaniac appetite.

Ilsa is the warden of Special Camp 9. Her goal, apart from some other sadistic games, is to prove that women can withstand more pain and suffering than men and therefore should be allowed to fight on the front lines. The movie includes the standard exploitation elements of sadism, degradation, whipping, sexual slavery, graphic torture, and a bloody finale with Ilsa shot dead and the camp set ablaze. I could more into detail on the plot, but I’m sure you get the general idea and by this time you are either interested or you are not.

It was shot in nine days on the set of Hogan's Heroes TV show- a much different take on the Nazi camps. The series had been cancelled, and, on learning that the movie had the camp being burned down at the end, the set was given over to save the cost of demolition. It also included amongst the women prisoners many porn actresses of the early 1970s, whose cleavage they never failed to flaunt.

 The film was a surprise hit on the drive-in theater and grindhouse circuit. Ilsa was resurrected for three profitable sequels that ignored her Nazi origins and her death. As a freelance mistress-for-hire, she became Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks (1976), commander of a 1953 gulag in Ilsa, the Tigress of Siberia (1977), and the warden of a corrupt Latin-American prison in Ilsa, the Wicked Warden (1977). The last one was originally not meant to be an Ilsa sequel, but it was changed post production.

Ilse Koch

The character of Ilsa, played by the lovely Dyanne Throne, was loosely based on Ilse Koch "The Bitch of Buchenwald". She was the wife of Karl-Otto Koch, commandant of Buchenwald and later on Majdanek. In 1947, she became one of the first prominent Nazis to be tried by the U.S. military. She was well known for being promiscuous with many of the SS officers at the camp and involved in embezzling confiscated materials from the prisoners. Additionally she was accused of marking prisoners with tattoos for death so she could harvest the skin and make lampshades out of them. She was tried twice and garnered a life sentence, which she ironically protested about to the International Human Rights Commission. She committed suicide in prison in 1967.

Richard Kennedy

Additionally, this film sports Richard Kennedy (whom we covered before in the wonderful film The Love Butcher). Here he plays a Nazi General inspecting the camp and becomes enthralled with Ilsa, whom he sees as the ideal Aryan woman, a Goddess made manifest. And as such, wants her to urinate all over his face for his sexual gratification. He had appeared in episodes of a number of TV show, most notably, Happy Days, Beretta, and Little House on the Prairie, and handful of  other bad films- Henry Kissinger in Ilsa: Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks, and a hillbilly in Invasion of the Blood Farmers. His career continued on into the 80s where he died in 1985 at the age of 78.

She Wolf of the SS pioneered the subgenre of Nazisploitation. Usually they were a retread of the women-in-prison formula simply relocated to a concentration camp. The genre eventually died out as none of these films were very successful. Due, I believe, to a lack of campiness that the Ilsa films generated, despite the sex and gore. A few others, for those who are interested, are : The Beast in Heat, SS Hell Camp, Last Orgy of the Third Reich, Helltrain, Germany Year Zero, SS Experiment Love Camp, SS Special Section Women, Red Nights of the Gestapo, Nazi Love Camp 2, Helga, She Wolf of Stilberg, Fraulein Devil, and Nathalie: Escape from Hell- and so on and so on.

And surprisingly the genre has inspired actual critically acclaimed art house films. Liliana Cavani's The Night Porter , Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (which we also have covered here), and Tinto Brass's Salon Kitty all are due in some part to Ilsa trail blazing brutality and demonstrating what can actually be gotten away in film. 

     For an exploitation Ilsa has tremendous staying power. It is campy and profane, sexual and sadistic. For those who like such things, it is a must see.

                      The entire film is below. Enjoy and Caveat Emptor!  

For more fun try Across the Wounded Galaxy by Rex Hurst

Turkey Shoot - The 1982 Dystopian Most Dangerous Game Exploitation Feature

 

Turkey Shoot, also known as Escape 2000 in the US (not the film that MST3K did an episode on in season 7) and Blood Camp Thatcher in the UK, is an explosive not-to-subtle excuse for a gore fest, disguised as an Orwellian drama. Not to say that this isn’t fun in the same way Ilsa She-Wolf of the SS is fun.

In the future people that society categorizes as “deviants” are rounded up into prison camps to be reeducated. This particular camp is so successful, because they pay almost no attention to the attrition rate. As such deaths are colorful and plenty and happily shown on the screen, usually performed by the warden’s burly sergeant, Ritter.

As the Warden Thatcher recites: “One of you has been foolish enough to try to leave us before his re-education was completed. In my view this is treason, and will be treated as such. You will remember our motto: 'Freedom is obedience, obedience is work, work is life'. Well, now understand once and for all that the reverse is also true, 'Disobedience is treason, treason is a crime, crime will be punished!'”

The film follows a small group of camp prisoners, most notably Paul (Steve Railsback) – a pirate radio presenter who was caught broadcasting anti-dictatorship messages – and Chris (Olivia Hussey), a shy shop owner who was captured when a protestor randomly stumbled into her store and the police thought he was conspiring with her.

Now all of this fun camp frolics culminates in a manhunt ripped from The Most Dangerous Game, where the Warden to aid his political career, has gathered together a collection of rich and powerful people to have a game hunt. Each of them picks out a target, with an additional condemned man tossed in, and they are given a head start.

As with most 80s low budget schlock there is an over-the-top ridiculousness in the weapons and equipment of the hunters. While the warden contents himself with a rifle, the female sadist lesbian (it is hinted) uses explosive tipped arrows from her crossbow, while the portly politico seems to like setting things on fire, and the last, a flamboyant libertine, uses a futuristic jeep vehicle with a scoop on the front, a machinegun mounted on top, and a “mutant” creature-covered in hair and fangs, with green cat eyes- he found in a carnival.

Strange as this sounds, the film was partially subsidized by the Australian government under its 10BA Film Tax Exemption Scheme, which was designed to bring new business and industry into the country and succeeded for a while.  Still budget problems were a large part of the issue with this film as at the last minute film lost about $700,000 of it's $3,200,000 budget, two weeks before production began when a major investor backed out. This cut the film from 44 days to only 28 and the first 15 pages of the initial script were removed as well as a 4 page helicopter chase scene. 

Still Turkey Shoot is what you make of it. If you go in wanting to see Citizen Kane reborn, then you will sorely upset. If, however, you want to see a fun exploitation flick with some nice gruesome gore to chew on, then jump on it.

Full film is below. Enjoy and Caveat Emptor.

For more fun try Across the Wounded Galaxy by Rex Hurst