Horreurs nazies

Sergio Garrone's "SS Experiment Camp" is a total failure on every possible level.This film was banned in Britain as a video nasty,but it surely isn't as outrageous as many people claim.In fact it's pretty tame even by today's standards.There is some torture and humiliation and lots of nudity and soft-core sex.Some scenes are pretty mean-spirited for example one woman who refuses to go through the experiments is put into the tank.The temperature is first put up to almost boiling point and then the dial is turned the other way making it icy cold.Still the film is extremely dull,so fans of Italian exploitation may be disappointed.Avoid this one like the plague-watch "Beast in Heat" or "Gestapo's Last Orgy" instead!

Sergio Garrone's grindhouse Nazi sex flick, shot back to back with the similarly dire SS WOMENS CAMP, is one of the most often cited "video nasties". In actuality it is totally ridiculous on every level, even relative to other genre entries. Owing more to SALON KITTY than ILSA, SHE WOLF OF THE SS yet made with zero flair and a poor grasp of English, this movie would have been forgotten forever had it not been singled out for prosecution at the hands of the DPP. The "experiments" are simply ridiculous and are no more than an intangible excuse for embarrassed soft-core writhing between very Latin looking "SS soldiers" and the well-fed inmates (who throughout the film are treated more as if they are in a holiday camp rather than Auschwitz!).

As with all similar films, the only offensive thing about this movie is its total trivialisation of the Holocaust. It is pretty interesting to watch, however... if only to see just how far exploitation can sink.

"SS Experiment Camp", as it's known in Britain, first found fame with its promotional poster - in the early days of video in the UK, when only cheap titles were being released, video store owners brightened up their shops with its lurid artwork of a tortured semi-naked girl hanging upside down in a prison yard, with the spooky face of an evil Nazi officer hovering behind. The result was outrage, and the beginning of the Video Nasties panic, resulting in the banning of this and almost 80 other films.

I don't think "SS Experiment Camp" is currently available uncut anywhere in the world, which is hardly surprising - even Anchor Bay would turn their noses up at this one. Obviously it's in UNBELIEVABLY poor taste, and yes it does take ludicrous liberties with its portrayal of Nazi death camps, but what really stands out about this movie is how appallingly bad it is. All these things come together most startlingly in the memorable scene where a lady prisoner, who has been repeatedly raped to orgasm by a sadistic female doctor, piles marmalade onto her bread and sighs "I haven't had marmalade for ages...if these guys keep treating us like this, they've got my vote!" Jaw-dropping.

The torture scenes aren't very realistic, but they're INCREDIBLY mean-spirited (the even-worse sequel to this movie, the charmingly titled "SS Camp 5: Women's Hell" has more torture, which the filmmakers absolutely revel in). "SS Experiment Camp" is a very, very badly made film - those of us with a taste for extremely sick kitsch watch it for its ludicrous, campy sleaziness - for which we should be thankful. If it was a well-made film, it would be pretty impossible to watch without puking your guts up.

SS Experiment Love Camp is a film that makes Love Camp 7 look downright lovable. And I don't mean that in a 'This isn't a film for wimps, while Love Camp 7 is' kind of way. I mean that relatively speaking, Love Camp 7 has a lot going for it and may engage or entertain you in its special fashion, but that SS Experiment Love Camp most certainly does not, and won't.

'Sex experiments in pursuit of a better tomorrow!' screams the tagline. Being carried out by various fools in a Nazi-run slave brothel during WWII, these experiments consist in the first place of observing how German soldiers couple with female prisoners in transparent waist- high water tanks, or on white-sheeted beds. Cue softcore sex scenes. The second kind of experiment involves no sex but lots of particularly idiotic violence. I'll admit that the cruelty of some of these scenes is affecting, but it's hard to get away from the pervading feeling of stupidity. For instance, can you really learn anything by sticking a tube in a woman's ear and then blasting her eardrum with several atmospheres of pressure? The folks playing the unflappable camp staff act as if they really think they can. Truly, it's not just for the purposes of sadism. 'What, she's dead? Get another one in, we'll try the experiment again.' They're also obsessed with perfecting the 'uterus transplant' procedure, a yucky effect you get to see at least three times. Unsurprisingly, these operations, which were clearly going nowhere, come to nothing. The film is for the most part a momentumless series of such softcore sex and shabbily portrayed torture scenes, further undercut by the silliest-looking dubbing I've seen in a film of this genre and the least convincing casting of a period film ever. The German troops look and act - and above all, sound - like American GIs.

Even for folks who want to watch them - like myself - these Nazi sexploitation films are acknowledged as being pretty hard to surpass in terms of bad taste, so when one is executed as dumbly as SS Experiment Love Camp, it sort of topples over into a zone where it could easily be viewed as a complete insult to humanity. You've got a film about Nazi experiments, but they're quite ridiculous. The film's hopeless in its period detail and everyone has a broad American accent. Jewishness isn't mentioned at all (not totally exceptional for this genre, but in this film, again, it somehow looks worse). There's almost no development, no suspense and no engagement value of any kind, except during the last twenty minutes, when they throw in the testicular transplant plot development which I haven't previously mentioned. The ball action and some unintended laughs are about the only things which stick out of this quite dull, dumb and thoroughly poor entry in the genre.

Okay, I honestly don't know why I watch movies like this. They handle about an unpleasant substance, the production values are extremely poor and the videostore lady always looks at you like you're some kind of dangerous psychopath when you rent them. Yet, these Nazi-exploitation movies have an enormous cult-value and they bring intriguing controversy. Well, usually that is, since this "SS Experiment Love Camp" is an utterly boring mess! The story is set in a vicious medical camp-base, where the best German soldiers are brought to copulate with resistant enemy women. Supposedly, this serves a higher purpose but they're never actually telling us what that might be. When a stud-soldier unexpectedly falls in love with his mating partner, his body is used for another – much more vile - medical experiment, namely the world's very first testicle transplant! "SS Experiment Love Camp" is an infamous video-nasty and, although it really sounds like one, it's hardly worth calling a shocker. The repulsiveness is limited to a few sequences (a girl gets both boiled an iced in a water tank, another one is hung bleeding by her feet) while the rest is of the film talkative dullness about the superiority of the Third Reich etc etc... The cast of characters features your usual lesbian warden, a perverted elderly guard and a fugitive doctor. The camera-work is weak and the torture devices are pathetic. If you do feel the uncontrollable desire to watch a Nazi exploitation movie, you can never go wrong with "Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS" or Tinto Brass' "Salon Kitty". Please, do avoid this garbage at all costs.