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

The Magic Christian- A Comedy Exposing How "Everyone Has Their Price"

          The Magic Christian is a nearly forgotten movie bursting with 1960s comedic genius, starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr. It is based on the novel of the same name by Terry Southern. Though the film is much altered from the novel with several more scenes written by Southern himself, along with John Cleese and Graham Chapman. The casting of Peter Sellers also necessitated the setting be moved from New York to London.

          The novel itself became important in that it brought Southern to the attention of Stanley Kubrick, who had received a copy as a gift from Peter Sellers, who then hired him on as co-writer for Dr. Strangelove, when Kubrick decided to make that film a black comedy, rather than a straightforward thriller.

          The plot is simple and episodic (it is in fact almost an anti-narrative), Sir Guy Grand (Peter Sellers), an eccentric billionaire, together with his newly adopted heir (formerly a homeless derelict), Youngman Grand (Ringo Starr), start playing elaborate practical jokes on people.

A big spender, Grand does not mind handing out large sums of money to various people, bribing them to fulfill his whims, or shocking them by bringing down what they hold dear. Their misadventures are designed to display the hypocrisy of life and that "everyone has their price"—it just depends on the amount one is prepared to pay. In fact the purpose of the film is Grand attempting to explore just how far he can go.

          There then follows a series of massive practical jokes. Starting with minor spoofs, like bribing a Shakespearean actor to strip during a stage performance of Hamlet, and convincing a traffic warden to take back a parking ticket and eat it.

          This all culminates in The Magic Christian which is pitched as the exclusive cruise liner and the “social must of the season.” Only the richest and stuffiest of socialites are allowed on board. Things start off pleasantly enough, but quickly turn weird. A solitary drinker at the bar is approached by a transvestite cabaret singer a vampire poses as a waiter, and a cinema film features the unsuccessful transplant of a black person's head onto a white person's body. Passengers start noticing, through the ship's closed-circuit television, that their captain is in a drunken stupor and gets carted off by a gorilla.

Roman Polanski and Yul Brenner

 In a crescendo of panic, the guests try to abandon ship. It is full of cameos with Christopher Lee, Roman Polanski, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Yul Brenner, and Raquel Welch (as “the Priestess of the Whip”).  Eventually climaxing in one of the madcap kitchen-sink comedic frenzies of insanity popular in the 60s comedies (Perhaps perfected in Casino Royale). A group of them, shown the way by Youngman Grand, instead reach the machine-room. There, the Priestess of the Whip assisted by two topless drummers, commands more than a hundred slave girls. They are naked except for loincloths. Rowing five to an oar, their wrists are manacled and fastened by chains to the ceiling. Apparently the actors kept deliberately flubbing their lines for this scene, so that they could spend more time perving on the naked women.

As passengers finally find an exit, and lords and ladies stumble out in the daylight, it is discovered that the supposed ship was in fact a structure built inside a warehouse, and the passengers had never left London.

In the final scene the pair fill up a huge vat with urine, blood and animal excrement and adds to it thousands of bank notes. Attracting a crowd of onlookers by announcing "Free money!” Grand successfully entices the city's workers to recover the cash. The sequence concludes with many members of the crowd submerging themselves, in order to retrieve money that had sunk beneath the surface. Originally Sellers wanted to do this in front of the Statue of Liberty, but due to the expense they stayed in London.

          The role of Youngman Grand was originally offered to John Lennon, but who had to back due to his 1968 arrest for possession of pot. Ringo Starr - who was hoping to pursue a career as an actor after having received favorable reviews for his performance in the 1964 Beatles film A Hard Day's Night  then stepped into the role intended for Lennon.

          There is a further Monty Python connection, besides Cleese and Chapman’s roles, in that one of the earliest Python sketches “The Mouse Problem”- a fake documentary about a man who is part of a subculture that enjoys dressing up as mice, an obvious parody of the secretive lives and social condemnation of gay men in the 1960s (although nowadays it seems much more on point with the “furries” subculture) - was written for the film. It was ultimately rejected by Sellers.

          This film is a product of its time, yet it still rings true today. Grand’s own blasé disdain for the culture and class which gave him the freedom and capital to mock it, is understated but ever present. While some critics have claimed that it was too silly to make a point, I feel they have missed it.

          The entire film is below. Enjoy and Caveat Emptor.

For more fun try books by Rex Hurst

Mothers Day Special: The Worst Mothers in History

       Happy Mother’s Day everyone! This is the time of year that we celebrate our maternal parent’s infinite love and eternal sacrifice in rearing us up from the time when we were babes mewling and puking in our cribs to the sterling adults that we doubt are now. The image of the mother figure is iconic throughout all of history and well represented in art from the beginning of time.  Click here for Volume 2 and Volume 3  and Volume 4 of this series. 

          However, as we all know, not every female is cut from the same nurturing cloth and should have been sterilized at birth. To counter the overwhelming schmaltzy female adoration that will be plastered everywhere this weekend, I present to you a sample of the worst mothers in history.

          Kathrine Mary Knight: She has the distinction of being the first woman in Australian history to be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Knight's father was an alcoholic who openly used violence and intimidation to rape her mother up to ten times a day. Her mother, in turn, often told her daughters intimate details of her sex life and how much she hated sex and men. As such she grew up to be a violent bully who would fly into uncontrollable rages. She went through a series of mutually violent marriages, whelping several children, before meeting John Price.   

One night he returned home to find she had sent the children away, and after a romantic night of booze, pills, and sex, she stabbed him to death and then skinned him. She then put his skin on a meat hook, cooked his head and parts of his body and placed them together with vegetables on plates with placecards with the children's names.

Marie Noe: A wonderful example of someone with Munchausen-by-Proxy syndrome, wherein a caregiver exaggerates, or induces mental or physical health problems of a child in their care, usually to gain attention or sympathy from others. Noe was convicted in June 1999 of murdering eight of her children. Between 1949 and 1968, eight of the ten Noe children died of mysterious causes which were then attributed to sudden infant death syndrome.

All eight children were healthy at birth and were developing normally. Her other two children died as well, but this was shown to be of natural causes (or else it couldn’t be proven otherwise). Ironically in 1963 Life magazine published a sympathetic article on Noe (written by Mary Cadwalader and using the pseudonyms Martha and Andrew Moore for Noe and her husband) after six of Noe's children had died

Viola Lucas: Mother of infamous serial killer Henry Lee Lucas. Giving birth to nine children, then having to care for a husband who lost both his legs in a train accident, was too much for this mother. She found a wonderful way to vent her frustrations by beating her youngest child, one of which went so far that it actually resulted in him being in a coma for three days. She left an eye injury Henry had received unattended for four days. It became infected and had to be removed then replaced with a glass eye. She often dressed him up as a girl and curled his hair to embarrass him. She often forced him to go to school in this manner. While earning money as a prostitute she often made watch while she had sex with clients.

He eventually repaid this attention by murdering her. On January 11, 1960, in Tecumseh, Michigan, Lucas killed his mother during the course of an ongoing argument regarding whether or not he should return home to his mother's house to care for her as she grew older. He claimed she struck him over the head with a broom, at which point he stabbed her in the neck and she fell. He stated, “All I remember was slapping her alongside the neck, but after I did that I saw her fall and decided to grab her. But she fell to the floor and when I went back to pick her up, I realized she was dead. Then I noticed that I had my knife in my hand and she had been cut.”

Susan Smith: On October 25, 1994, Smith, a South Carolinian with a history of drunk-and-disorderly arrests, reported to police that her vehicle had been carjacked by a black man who drove away with her sons still in it. For nine days, she made dramatic pleas on national television for their rescue and return. Her and her ex-husband, whom she had cheated on repeatedly, were subjected to intense polygraph examinations.

The murdered children of Susan Smith

Following an intensive investigation and a nationwide search, on November 3, 1994, she confessed to letting her 1990 Mazda Protegé roll into nearby John D. Long Lake, drowning the boys, 3-year-old Michael Daniel Smith, and 14-month-old Alexander Tyler Smith. Her motivation was reportedly to be able to have a relationship with a local wealthy man, even though the latter had no intention of forming a family. She was sentenced to life imprisonment for her crimes (It’s amazing how few of these women actually get the death penalty even for the most heinous of crimes. It’s a clear example of the sort of sexism we’ve all been fighting against). She will actually be eligible for parole in 2024, but due to lack of remorse it is unlikely that will happen.

Sanae Nakamura: A sex worker in Japan, she fought for custody of her two children during her divorce then quickly grew tired of caring for them. She had no time or inclination to do housework, as evidenced by the mountains of garbage in the apartment. In March 2010 Sanae Nakamura got herself a boyfriend and began to spend the nights with him, leaving her 3-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son home alone.

A concerned neighbor contacted the Osaka municipal child consultation center 3 times because the children could be heard crying and screaming “mama, mama!” every night. The first phone call was made on March 30, 2010. Two welfare officials showed up on March 31, April 1 and April 2. Nobody answered the door so they left. The neighbor called again early on April 8, 2010. The children were still crying and screaming late into the night. The welfare officials showed up that day but again nobody answered the door. So they left. This happened again a third time.

In early June, 2010, Sanae Nakamura locked the door to her apartment and walked away. Little Sakurako Hagi and her baby brother Kaede Hagi were abandoned inside and left to die. She later told the police that she wanted “to flee from everything and have time to myself. I thought about a week later they might be dead. I didn’t feel like I should return home to save them.”

Left to starve to death by Sanae Nakamura

On July 29, 2010 Sanae Nakamura did return to the apartment, but as soon as she found her babies’ decomposing corpses she left again, just as if nothing happened. On July 30, 2010, police arrived at the apartment after somebody reported a “strange smell coming from apartment 303”. The police had to enter the apartment from the balcony because the door was locked. When they got inside, they discovered the source(s) of the smell. The 2 tiny, emaciated corpses were naked and lying face up in the middle of the room, surrounded by garbage.

When arrested, she showed no remorse. “Since I divorced in May last year, I had become tired of caring for my children. I wanted free time,” She openly told police. “I wished I hadn’t had children. I knew that such young children couldn’t live if I left them behind and refused to give them food or water.”

At her trial, she used all of the usual tactics of blaming her actions on a poor upbringing and false statements of being sexually molested when she was a child. Which availed her as well as the rest of the women on this list. She was given thirty years in prison.

I hope you enjoyed this little segment. Have a happy Mother’s Day! Again, if you want more click here for Volume 2 and Volume 3 of this series. 

For more weirdness try The Foot Doctor Letters: A Serial Killer Speaks Out by Rex Hurst. Available in paperback and on kindle. 

George Romero's The Crazies- A Low Budget Horror Gem

       George Romero’s The Crazies (also called Codename: Trixie) is a nearly forgotten little low budget gem from the 1970s. I’m sure that there will be ton of film buff lunatics who went into a frenzy when I said nearly forgotten, but it is true. Most people have forgotten this little film, and it certainly has been lost in the shuffle, filmed as it was between his much bigger hits Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead.

The film follows two stories, one about the civilians trying to stay alive during the disaster, having to battle both "the crazies" as well as U.S. soldiers ordered to shoot on sight. The other involves the political and military leaders trying to contain the epidemic.

Richard Liberty (Clank) & Will MacMillian (David)

Set in the small town of Evans City, Pennsylvania, the central characters are firefighter David, his girlfriend Judy, and firefighter Clank. David was a Green Beret and Clank an infantryman, both having served in Vietnam. The town has seen a number of violent events, including arson at a local farm by a demented farmer. Judy and David are very concerned, since Judy is pregnant.

Meanwhile, heavily armed U.S. troops in NBC suits and gas masks, arrive in town, led by Major Ryder, who takes over the doctor's office where Judy works. Days earlier, an Army plane carrying an untested bioweapon crash-landed in the hills near the town, infecting the water supply with a virus code-named "Trixie," causing victims to either die or become homicidal. "Trixie" is highly contagious, with anyone drinking from the Evans City reservoir becoming affected. In Washington D.C., government officials order Colonel Peckem to go to Evans City to help contain the virus, while scientist Dr. Watts, arrives to develop a cure before the virus spreads beyond the small town.

The film is in itself a comedy of errors. We see mistake after mistake made by the government forces attempting to deal with the crisis, due to the fact of the secrecy surrounding the bio-toxin Trixie. None of the response teams at first are told what it is or that it is infectious. As such, the equipment taken is inadequate. A member of the development team is shipped to the infected city, but is unable to effectively make strides due to all of his notes and files on the virus being left behind. And in fact the scientist finds a cure, but due to communication issues the knowledge is lost.

While certainly low budget the film, does not have that feel. It never stops moving and has an animated frenzied life to it. You can feel the impending dread and taste the paranoia of the actors. In The Crazies, as well as Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the Dead, Romero shows his true genius- his ability to do more with less. It wasn’t until he was handed larger budgets that his films began to feel flat.

The interesting thing about The Crazies is the treatment of the infected. They aren’t transformed into some ravenous monsters hell-bent on destruction, such as in 28 Days Later or I Am Legend, or instant bags of disease such as in Outbreak or The Cassandra Crossing. They literally begin to act odd, reacting to their environment in a bizarre manner. They giggle, they open things that should remain closed, they have difficulty remembering what’s going on. One of my favorite visuals is an infected woman running through a field, being shot by soldiers, carrying a broom and sweep the grass like it was a floor as she ran.

Lynn Lowery (Kathy)

This adds another dimension to the infected as they are fully functional, in a way, the decision to put them down is much more impactful. The element of pathos is much clearer here. These are real people being killed, as opposed to how they are shown in other films.

Some have made the case that this film might well easily be rewritten to show the dead outbreak in the Living Dead series, and I can see that. While The Crazies definitely borrows elements from Night of the Living Dead and adds element that would be later used in Dawn of the Dead, the film is in itself a complete entity.

The entire film is below. Enjoy and Caveat Emptor! 

 

For more weirdness 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

Psychomania- A Weird British Biker Horror Film

This film (also released as The Death Wheelers) is an odd conglomeration of different genres being thrust together to made a truly memorable film. It is not a good film, not bad, not even so-bad-its-good, but it is not boring and has a vibe about it that resonates with the viewer long after for reasons which cannot really be explained. No one I’ve met who has seen this film has ever forgotten it.

The film is better than it has any right to be. It attempts to capitalize on the notorious success in England of A Clockwork Orange by having an attractive sociopathic main character, then mixes it with the low budget trend of cycle movies which were circulating around England’s youth culture, and adding an occult twist- another popular trend at the time. Add a fading star, George Sanders, a script that didn’t know if it wanted to be serious or camp, and a three week shooting schedule and viola!- Psychomania!

Biker Tom is the leader of a gang who lovingly call themselves "The Living Dead". Aside from tormenting the local townsfolk, the gang likes to hang out at a place known as The Seven Witches, a graveyard that some believe is haunted.

Tom's mother holds séances allowing people to communicate with their dead family members. She does this as a charity, and insists that no one ever pay her for her services. Her butler Shadwell (George Sanders) runs the household and apparently never ages. There is a hint that he is a demonic imp or something of the sort, but it is never verified, but he does like to examine frogs- a sign of the Devil in some rural parts.

Tom's mother allows him to enter a forbidden room in the house and learns the secret of immortality- You must believe that you will return, and believe so firmly that you actually want to die, then you must commit suicide. The very next day Tom speeds off a bridge.

 He is buried sitting up on his motorcycle (with a full tank of gas apparently) at The Seven Witches. After an excruciating folk song, Tom roars from the grave on his bike. That night, he murders an entire tavern.

He passes on the secret to his gang and they follow suit. Now undead (aside from Tom's girlfriend, Abby), The Living Dead live up to their name and go on a murderous crime wave. But with Abby's refusal to go along with the others, and Tom's mother's guilt for creating a band of killers, soon the bikers discover a horrible downside to immortality. 

Pictured: Downside

Psychomania is also distinctive as it is the last film of the acting great George Sanders. Now I’m not going to say that this film was the final nail in his coffin, but I doubt it helped. By the end of his life Sanders was suffering from dementia and a minor stroke, and can be seen visually listing back and forth in Psychomania.

          But at least he went out in style. On April 23^rd, 1972 he entered a hotel in Spain and downed five bottles of Nembutal- a barbiturate usually used as short term sedative, though it has been used in the U.S. for lethal injections in death penalty cases and by veterinarians for euthanasia purposes.  

George Sanders in Psychomania

The most popular of his three suicide notes read, "Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck."
  Later David Nivens in his second autobiography, Bring on the Empty Horses, wrote that Sanders had predicted that he would commit suicide when he was 65, and seemed perpetually depressed in his 50s.

John Levene in Psychomania

 And for old school Doctor Who fans, there is a small scene where John Levene (who played Sergeant Benton) is a sergeant at a police station, then is murdered by the gang.

          The entire film is below.
For more fun try Books by Rex Hurst 

         Enjoy and Caveat Emptor!

Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricki- The Most Ridiculously Violent Film Ever

          This is a film that completely caught me off guard when I first viewed it. I don’t if it was the insane levels of violence, the incredibly poor special effects, or the bad translations. But once the story started, I could not look away from this ultraviolent bit of ridiculousness.

          Now there have been better translations done over time as word of this film spread and reached cult status, but my initial copy had translated the words literally, without giving thought to the context of the situation. For example, the scene where Ricky is being held in a steel bar cage that wrap around his neck in the warden’s office, one of the villains stuffs a handful of razorblades into Ricky’s mouth then hits him in the head with a pipe wrench six times, causing the blades to stick out through Ricky’s cheeks.

In the translation I had, he spits out the blades and yells, “None of you are a good lot!” See what I mean, not exactly a realistic response to the situation. In later copies of the film, I saw that the line had been translated as, “You son of a bitch!” Which makes more sense, but is not as fun if you are viewing Riki Oh through the so bad its good lens.

The film is based on the Japanese manga Riki-Oh by Masahiko Takajo and Saruwatari Tetsuya. While I have not read the manga, I have been told by people who have that the film follows the events of the book very closely.

This speaks for itself

By the year 2001, all correctional facilities have been privatized. Ricky Ho is sentenced to 10 years in prison after killing a Yakuza boss who was responsible for the death of his girlfriend. Flashback scenes reveal that a group of thugs had captured her after she witnessed their heroin deal. Attempting to get away from them, she ran to the roof of a building and jumped off to her death.

My favorite death in the film

One morning in the prison bathroom, an elderly inmate named Ma is viciously beaten by the captain of the cells, Wildcat. As he leaves, Ricky trips him, and Wildcat falls on a piece of wood with nails on it, hand and face first. The cell captain then sends Zorro, a dangerous fat inmate, kill him. The next day, Zorro attacks Ricky, but is grotesquely killed. Shortly after, a member of the Gang of Four who run each section of the prison named Hai, the leader of the North Cell, sends Ricky to see the sadistic one-eyed Assistant Warden Dan- who is missing an arm and keeps mints hidden in his fake eye. After Ricky confronts Dan, he suggests Hai kill Ricky.

Outside the prison yard, Hai and Ricky engage in a fight. Ricky knocks out Hai’s eye by hitting him in the back of the head. Hai then blinds Ricky by throwing shards of glass into his eyes and cutting the tendons of his arm. Ricky breaks open an water pipe, clears the glass from his eyes and sews his arm back together using his own veins. Hai then cuts out his own intestines and attempts to strangle Ricky, but Ricky flips him up in the air and breaks Hai’s skull.

And so on and so on. It continues with this ridiculousness, until Ricky has defeated the Gang of Four, the evil Assistant Warden, and finally the Warden- who turns into a huge monster at the end (of course) and is defeated by being pushed into a giant meat grinder. I could go on, but the plot is really unimportant. You could watch it with the sound off and easily get as much enjoyment, not knowing what was happening.

There was allegedly a sequel called Dint King, Inside King (aka, Story of Ricky 2 or Super Powerful Man) was released in Hong Kong in 2005, however from what I’ve head the plot does not follow the events that supposedly occur after Ricky breaks out of prison, and is set in the distant future as opposed to 2001 for the first film. However the same actor was hired to play the lead as in Ricki Oh.

Below is the film entire, and a selection of the most graphic bits for those who want to skip to the good parts. Enjoy and Caveat Emptor.

                                                             Full Film

                                              Edited Highlights

For more weirdness try Across the Wounded Galaxy by Rex Hurst