KZ9 - Lager di sterminio

Women's Camp 119 (1977)

* (out of 4)

Naziploitation from Italian director Bruno Mattai has the familiar story of the mean Nazis taking women hostage and doing all sorts of experiments on them, both physical ones as well as sexual ones. Mattai worked as a producer, editor, director, actor, writer and various other things during his career but it's clear he never learned how to cut an exploitation movie down. This film runs 100-minutes, which is at least thirty minutes too long as the film grows very tiresome very quickly. There's plenty of lesbian sex, torture and nudity but all of this grows boring after the first fifteen times. As is to be expected, the performances are all rather weak but Mattai does bring a few decent touching in the visual look of the film. Apparently this film was based on real characters as we're told what happened to them since the time of these events including one who lived in America up to the time this film was released.

Camp Rosenhausen is the setting of this bleak nazisploitation by cheap horror auteur Mattei, where all manner of ghastly experiments are being conducted to cure homosexuality, thaw frozen aviators and reverse sterility all with the grand purpose of proliferating the Aryan race.

Italian leading lady Lorraine De Selle co-stars as the captive medical doctor forced to collaborate on the inhumane experiments, all the while trying to avoid the threat of the crematorium and the unwanted attentions of crazy Kurt (Attansio) a giggling, slobbering apparently brain-damaged servant used to sexually abuse the captives (and who also likes to indulge on the side, for which he's notorious).

Staccioli leads the cast playing a stern, malicious and especially sadistic commandant unwavering in his commitment to the perverse experiments even as it becomes clear that the Russian front will be overcome. Unlike his nazisploitation contemporaries, Staccioli's character is a lot less sympathetic even by their collectively low standards, and so whilst abhorrent, his character is consistent and believable.

The experiments are outrageous as intended, the overall film rather grim, Mattei exploits most of the typical genre themes from lesbian officers and girl-on-girl fights, to S&M and growling mutts (in this case German Shepherds) as he creates a vaguely watchable entry with better plot structure than most of its ilk, and a fitting conclusion that shouldn't disappoint. Definitely one of the better exponents of the genre.

SS Extirmination camp is a grim and depressing film. Not like the usual Nazi films ie SS Hell Camp, SS Girls. Its cast of characters symbolise the holocaust, and the music is very sad and plays well with the grim scenes.

Bits of the movie are exploitative, but they (medical tests) are all based on Nazi records, so they are realistic.

The cast is actually very well acted, and the script is brilliant, other parts of the movie, belong in schindlers list, as they are so real in their depitction of the holocaust, such as gassing, shot with poison bullets and and the kind doctors getting hung while inmates sing Israel much to the annoyance of the Commandant.

The sets are all very good, the concentration camp looks like an old industrial factory and the guards all wear proper uniforms, as well as the inmates, and the special effects are not bad either.

For the Exploiation fans, there are rapes, whippings, hangings, uterus transplants, vivisection, and shootings, and gang rapes etc.

For the historical fans out there, there are very depressing moments which show the holocaust for what is was, horrible.

The film is no doubt Bruno Mattei's best film, as it contains a good cast, no stock footage and none of the plot is borrowed from any other film.

I seriously suggest you check it out-

Bruno Mattei, often called the Ed Wood of Italian cinema, started his directorial career with Nazi exploitation films, then moved to women in prison movies, and now directs zombie movies. he actually acted in Lucio Fulci's Zombie 3; I guess to learn the genre.

This is his second attempt at Nazi camp films, and it is poorly made. The lighting is absolutely atrocious and that is better than the acting.

The effects are non-existent, so the experimentation they were doing has no effect. It is just an interesting look at the sickness the Nazi's were working on, like transplanting a uterus, or reviving frozen pilots with women's bodies, or poison bullets to make people suffer more.

Naturally, since this is an exploitation film, you see a whole lot of full frontal nudity, degenerate monsters who rape, and some really creepy Nazi commandants and wardens.

It is funny in that I have seen a lot of girl fights in movies, but in this film, they always manage to get totally naked when they fight.

This movie´s a sleazeball. There´s no other way of describing it. I guess, that´s no big surprise for you, knowing other Italian Nazi-Exploitation-Films like "La Bestia In Calore" or "SS Camp 5: Women´s Hell". But this movie is different. It´s not as campy as the others. On the contrary, it tends to take its story serious, which doesn´t make it easy to watch, because some sequences are very disgusting and depressing. So, it´s one of the rare serious efforts by Bruno Mattei, King of Sleaze-Boredom. Although very cheaply produced like simply all his other films, this one´s not the right choice if you want to have a cheap laugh at his incredibly bad directing skills and, surprisingly enough, he might have intended it that way, perhaps to give us all something to think about. But why? He doesn´t come up to our Sadiconazista- Expectations, he simply doesn´t deliver. So, now you´re warned.