The Gestapo's Last Orgy

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.

I've read some reviews of this film and I think they are missing something. OK! This is a nazisploitation flick - there's a concentration camp for Jewish women (for coincidence, most of them young and pretty), there is a scene in which a woman is thrown to the dogs for feeding them; in another one young girls are standing side by side waiting to be raped by German soldiers; and there's also a sadomasochistic relationship between Commandant Starker and a woman officer and so on..... But beyond these attractions, "L'Ultima Orgia del III Reich" is about a love relationship between Commandant Starker and a Jewish girl, Lise. It is a love relationship born first from fear - the omnipresent death surrounding and threatening everything had succeeded in drowning hate in a lake of numbness - Lise had hardened herself into indifference and Starker's violence stirs something in her. A dark love affair ensues, and nonetheless it is in some ways a truer depiction of love than the one that is usually given by the average film, where everything is clean and white.

Commandant Starker had made everything he could to break Lise (she had even been tied upside down, her head near a floor crowded with mice). But he had noticed he couldn't make her lose her mind.

And then Lise she seduces Starker. They start a love relationship, fed by opportunism, hate, fear and luxury and driven by power and death. There's a moment in which Starker says to Lise: "I showed you death, now you can start to really live".

But this a a doomed relationship - born in a concentration camp, fed by fear and numbness, aroused by death and violence and corroded by hate and quiet despair. It is an interesting story. Try to leave your prejudices at the door and you may be surprised.

It takes something special to shock those of us who chew popcorn through Hong Kong gore movies and watch the bulldozer decapitation scene from "Island Of Death" to cheer ourselves up. Blood and guts won't do it: if you've ever seen a movie like "Flower Of Flesh And Blood", you hardly blink at a badly-acted torture scene or two. Nastiness isn't enough: those who've sat through the rape scene in "I Spit On Your Grave" won't find any of the sexual violence in "Gestapo's Last Orgy" remotely disturbing. So why is this strange, strange movie more unsettling than any of the other obscure trash/gore/exploitation flicks some of us love so much?

Unlike "SS Experiment Camp" or "The Beast In Heat", "The Gestapo's Last Orgy" isn't quite ridiculous enough to be camp...unlike "Ilsa, She Wolf Of The SS", it's not an outrageous bad-taste romp for whooping drive-in punters. Influenced more by "The Night Porter" than anything else, this unsavoury bucket of softcore death-camp swill actually thinks it's A Proper Movie.

Director Cesare Canavari has a ball ripping off Fellini, Godard, Pasolini and Tinto Brass on a college-project budget, while the script attempts to explore Sadeian themes with some level of seriousness. Uniquely among the Nazisploitation films, the movie specifically refers to the prisoners as Jewish. But this is a movie in which Nazis sit round a dinner table saying "there's nothing better than a pot-roast of unborn Jew!" - in a "dramatic" boat scene, a technician can be seen kneeling in the back of the boat. It's a cheapo, badly-made schlock shocker just like all the others! Its pretentions are what make it so mindbogglingly shocking - what the hell were these people thinking?

If it's a bad film you're after, then I recommend seeing anything from the abysmal Nazisploitation sub-genre, as unless I'm missing something; they're all terrible! Never has there been a film type so moronic and redundant, and The Gestapo's Last Orgy doesn't do anything to make me reconsider that notion. I suppose in fairness; it has to be said that this isn't as bad as the completely crap SS Experiment Camp, but it really isn't too far off. My only reason for bothering with this film is because of the fact that it was a part of the DPP's Video Nasty list back in the eighties, and I'm pleased to say that now I've seen three of the four Nazisploitation flicks on the list, I only have one left to go (the almost certainly mind numbing Love Camp 7). The Gestapo's Last Orgy is slightly more epic than most of the rest of the sub-genre, but that's not a good thing as it only means that it's even more boring. The plot has something to do with a prisoner of war whom various sick Nazi's see fit to experiment on, only for her to start playing her own game with them...or something. The storyline is too meandering to be satisfying, and most of the film is caught up in showing how sick the Nazi's were - like we need a film to show us that! I'm a big fan of cult cinema, and almost all the sub-genres have some decent films among them - that is, except Nazisploitation. Overall, I have to say that unless you're working your way through the Video Nasty list - this is one to avoid!

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.