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.

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.

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-

Women are held captive by the Nazis and tortured. One of the women is seen as highly skilled and is forced to help a doctor who is working on a way to cure homosexuality, as well as transplanting uteruses from fertile to barren women, among other things.

The version available from Fortune 5 DVD is grainy, and even though it is in English, it has (what appear to be) Dutch subtitles. This could obviously be improved: cleaner picture, and the original language spoken with English subtitles would be nice.

The film is written and directed by Bruno Mattei, who is probably best known for his zombie films ("Virus") and mediocre efforts in horror and sci-fi. This is not horror or sci-fi, but it could easily be called mediocre.

There are plenty of nude women showering and/or being molested to exploitatively feast your eyes on, if only the film was not so fuzzy. Also a few sex scenes with threesomes, under the guise of an experiment on heat transfer.

In one scene, actual film of concentration camp victims is shown, adding to the realism, but again in an exploitive and indecent manner.