L'ultima orgia del III Reich

Unlike the extremely camp exercise in bad taste that is 'Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS' , Gestapo's Last Orgy is a more unflinching look at the atrocities committed in a Nazi concentration camp, shot in a quasi-serious style. With its harrowing scenes of sexual abuse and violent death and torture, it is easy to understand why this movie might be considered more shocking than other similarly themed flicks from the same era; but is delivering a rawer and nastier (but still very exploitative) movie any more distasteful or disrespectful than making light of the subject matter?

In my opinion, all Nazisploitation movies are treading on dodgy ground and if you're going to use such a touchy subject to make a film that is designed to titillate and disgust, then you might as well go the whole hog. Director Cesare Canevari certainly thinks so; with Gestapo's Last Orgy, he delivers an often sickening piece of no holds barred cinema that should satisfy most fans of extreme movie-making.

Daniela Poggi plays Lise Cohen, a beautiful young Jewish woman being held in a Nazi 'love camp'. Believing that she is responsible for the death of her family, she has lost the will to live and offers no resistance when tortured by evil Commandant Conrad von Starker (Adriano Micantoni). Frustrated by the lack of emotion shown by the woman, Conrad makes Lise his special project and tells her that she will learn to love life once she has experienced real fear.

When a friendly doctor discovers that Lise was not actually to blame for the death of her loved ones, he tells her, thus restoring her will to live and, in turn, her fear of death. In order to survive, she must now pretend that von Starker has succeeded in breaking her, and become his lover...

With scenes of mass extermination, violent rape, and general lack of respect for human life, Canevari's sick flick is certainly disturbing; although not packed with the the wall-to-wall gore that one might expect, the sheer nastiness of some moments make this one hard to stomach at times. When the head honchos at the camp tuck into a meal made from 'unborn Jew', or douse a woman in Cognac and set her on fire, it's not necessarily the visuals that will make you gag, but the idea being portrayed.

Occasionally the pace of the movie lulls and sometimes Canevari sees fit to get rather pretentious with his direction, but, on the whole, the film is a decent enough watch for those seeking some sleaze. And although I imagine the makers never intended to provide any laughs, I defy anyone to not giggle at the moment when Lise is suspended above flesh-eating rats (actually rather disinterested gerbils) or the 'sex' scene between Lise and the doctor, which consists of several minutes of them rolling around together naked, but never actually seeming to bother with any serious boning!

6.5 out of 10 (rounded up to 7 for IMDb).

The beautiful blonde (Daniela Poggi) is sent to a concentration camp for female Jews to be sexually used by the German soldiers. She is not afraid of dying, since she believes she provoked the death of her family in a ghetto. Commandant Conrad von Starker (Marc Loud) feels challenged by her behavior and decides to torture her, making she faces the horror of death. Later, she becomes her sexual slave of along the period of war. In the post-war, they meet each other, with this meeting ending in a tragic way. This type of 'exploitation movie' recalls `Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS', with a shallow drama which recalls `The Night Porter' and violence like `Salo, or The 120 Days of Sodom'. At least, Daniela Poggi, who works naked along all the movie, has a beautiful body and the violence is limited, therefore it is watchable. I do not like this genre, but there are movies worse than `L' Ultima orgia del III Reich'. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): `As Condenadas' (`The Condemned')

This sickie has very good production values, decent acting and an exciting storyline for this kind of trash. Them deranged nazis is at again in one of those generic "women's work camps". It's not as graphic as others but the vile tone is unbelievable harsh as the officers torture and humiliate young jewish girls and...(hold tight!)...EAT THEM AND THEIR UNBORN BABIES!!?! It's unsettling as hell cuz it's so well made. There's also a lot of De Sade-like master/slave games going on. Only for the most jaded thrill seekers (like me) who're tired of Hollywood's PC blockbusters.

Out of sheer lurid curiosity I rented this Naz-xploitation flick and it fully lived up to its shocking promise. This treats the Nazis not just as "sadists" commonly understood, but true sadists, i.e., those who are sexually excited by inflicting pain, mental toment, anguish and death on others. So, it serves up not just the violence expected in concentration camp storytelling, focuses exclusively on sexual cruelty. It's production values are uneven, but it's obvious someone spent a fair amount on producing this, and it makes one wonder: did the filmakers really think there would be a wide audience for this depravity? I can't imagine any cinema programming this. The banquet scene, where some debauched "doctor" proudly and leeringly announces the evening's entree, "pot roast of unborn Jew", is out there on the disgusting scale with the banquet scene in "Salo". In other words, this is extreme stuff. Yikes.

It's also obvious that the screenwriters did their homework on the writings of DeSade; the speeches some of these characters make could have been transposed from "The 120 Days of Sodom". Plus, the fact that the depravity all takes place on an isolated castle ground, on an island in the middle of a river, is yet another Sadean tableau.

Not for weak stomachs.

The Gestapo's Last Orgy concerns an unlikely romance between a Nazi death camp commandant and a Jewish female prisoner, Lise Cohen. Shortly after the war they rendezvous at the dilapidated remains of the concentration camp they met. From here, the story is told in flashback. We discover that the camp was used to incarcerate Jewish women. These women were subsequently subjected to all manner of sexual degradation, torture and death. Lise refuses to be broken by her Nazi oppressors and, subsequently, becomes the object of the camp commandant's obsession. This leads to her being treated in increasingly degrading ways. But the commandant's obsession also offers her hope of salvation.

As an example of the Naziploitation sub-genre, The Gestapo's Last Orgy is a more hard-edged entry than the very silly SS Experiment Camp. Unlike the latter film, there is more of an attempt at authenticity. The victims are clearly referred to as Jews and the treatment meted out to the women is often very disturbing. That is not to say that the film is a convincing depiction of events in a Nazi death camp - it is pretty ridiculous a lot of the time. However, there is a definite mean-spiritedness about this exploitation movie. The women seem to be constantly undressed. There is a great deal of sexual assault, humiliation and torture. The victims are hung naked from chains, fed to dobermans, drowned in quicklime - you name it. This, of course, all sounds extremely lurid and nasty. And it is. But the film isn't terribly well-made, so it isn't quite as shocking as it sounds. The crazy dubbing does not help matters either. Nevertheless, I would be very surprised if this film finds itself released uncut on DVD in the UK. With it's combination of sex and violence, this is one of the infamous 'video nasties' that would still pose some problems to UK censors. So, if that is enough of a recommendation for you then go for it.