Kaput Lager - Gli ultimi giorni delle SS

How does one sum up this film? Perhaps as "Tobruk" meeting "Caged Women"- and failing. It is neither a proper war flick nor a real WIP effort. The war scenes are pointless and excruciating. The WIP element is interesting sexploitation, with whipping, castration and some interesting and gratuitous nudity. However it is really a cinematic dog's dinner- your life will not suffer if you miss this one.

This film is one hour of boring war action with about 20 minutes of tasteless sleaze stuck in the middle. And even the sleaze is pretty tame compared to director Batzella's later foray into shocking sadism, SS HELL CAMP. You get whippings, castration and a Nazi gets a cup of urine splashed in his face. The rest of the movie is total fast-forward material. Along with most of the offerings from France's Eurocine (HELLTRAIN, FRAULEIN DEVIL), this is one of the worst films in the disreputable genre of Nazi concentration camp exploitation films.

This is how John Sturges really wanted his classic film - with nudity, whippings, and castrations! American Major Lexman (Richard Harrison) finds himself amongst Brits in a Nazi prison camp in Northern Africa run by Kommandant von Stolzen (Gordon Mitchell). Taking sadistic Dr. Lessing (Lea Lander) hostage, the Allies make their escape into the desert with the Germans in hot pursuit. As always, Harrison and Gordon do their jobs well and are fortunate in that they are the only cast members who don't get whipped. Yup, there is a lot of whipping going on in this one. Italian director Luigi Batzella (operating under the pseudonym Ivan Kathansky) packs the film with enough fighting and sleaze to at least keep viewers awake for its scant 80 minute running time. Batzella would return to this sub-genre the same year with SS HELL CAMP and, since Harrison isn't involved, I'm not going there.

The film lasts for 78 minuets on the Dutch DVD, due to its status in cult fandom, this film is regarded as one of the worst ever, here's why: -Has been 1960s stars wide up here, Gordon Mitchell and Mike Monti. -Luigi Batzella is the director, writer, and editor, and no doubt a one man crew, most of his films were garbage, three to four westerns shot on one wooden town built by Gordon Mitchel, three cheap war films and two erotic horror films, shot in crappy locations. -Despite its 78 minuet running time, there are around 15 minuets of stock footage, of things blowing up, and large amounts of soldiers fighting, inter-cut with around a dozen stupid extra's running around. -Poor lighting, most likely done with broken equipment, shot in Spain using locals as Arabs! (no offence intended) -The camp scenes are shot on the same sets as SS Experiment camp. -No ending, just a soldier throwing down a shovel. -Around twenty actors were used for the entire film.

...But despite all that, today's film students, can learn from it, and hopefully make their own.

God bless you Batzella!

I'm actually a big fan of these cult films, I know their shortcomings, but I'd still pick this over any Hollywood blockbuster coming out today, with overflated money grabbing stars and more CGI than actual film!

To everyone that like a good action movie, some pretty women and are interested in knowing this amazing world of exploitation, this is the movie: it's not as brutal as "Ilsa" or "Caligula reincarnated as Hitler", but is fast and painless, and you can watch without fear.

I'm sick of people in bad move saying that this movie is crap, that it's awful and stuff. OK, it's not a masterpiece, but is fun, well done and have lots of action. This people that want every movie to be a masterpiece should shut up and let movies like this movie be watched for people that only want 80 minutes of fun.

I recommend it!