Les Déportées de la section spéciale SS

NOW we're scraping the bottom of the barrel, as the Nazisploitation genre kicks into gear with a film that's both offensive and snooze inducing, featuring a career low from John Steiner. His terrible acting in fact is the only thing that will keep you awake.

A bunch of women are taken to a special camp to join Ian Curtis and Peter Hook in Joy Division. There's the usual bunch of aggressive lesbians who all want a piece of this and that and aren't averse to having a cat fight in order to find out who is the top carpet muncher on camp. Meanwhile (and I'm struggling here as the plot just sort of ties all the usual exploitation crap together) John Steiner is the guy and charge and he's delighted to find that his ex-girlfriend is one of the prisoners. That's not so lucky for her mind you, ending up in a Nazi camp with an irate ex in charge. Revenge porn kind of pales in comparison.

The relentless barrage of crap in this film involves Steiner trying to get his ex to fall in love with him which invariably leads to her getting beaten and tortured, being forced to witness sex acts (YOU WILL VIEW MY SPECTACLE - Steiner screams), gets it on with a camp guard to make Steiner jealous (whom he bums in the funniest scene in the film), while the other inmates are beaten, showered, glowered at, ogled, tortured and murdered, all done in a rather cheap fashion which causes the viewer to start nodding off.

What was Steiner thinking? Things come to a head when Big John ends up getting little John torn to shreds with a fanny/razor blade combo. What a pile of crap. I'm only watching it because when I set out to watch all these films I figured I'd see how low things got in the Italian film industry. The answer is: very low. Who was this film aimed at? All those escaped Nazis in South America?

And there you have it: My review of The Departed: US Special Edition

The female body is a work of art, why would anyone want to see a movie where it is not treated well? I guess I'm wondering why entire sub-genres that are little more than a series of female torture and humiliation scenes are so popular (maybe we can be optimistic and say most viewers are just waiting for the 10-minute payback at the end?), but this is a discussion for another time, another place. There are certainly a lot of (often naked, usually beautiful, always natural) female bodies in "Deported Women of the SS Special Section", and the film itself is rather tamer than expected. In fact, for all the atrocities contained herein, the nastiest scene may be the one where the heroine licks the hairy leg of a fat middle-aged man! No no, the nastiest is probably what happens to that same man a little later (other reviews have already mentioned it)....Writer-director Rino Di Silvestro is better as the latter: the direction is almost arty at times (though the DVD transfer is rather murky), but the script is disjointed. As the prison camp's commander, John Steiner chews the scenery up and spits it out, contrasting with Lina Polito's quiet, dignified presence as his object of obsession. The film has its moments, but it is still recommended only to exploitation fanatics. (*1/2)

When one watches exploitation films of this genre, one really wants to see things taken more absurd, but this one takes things too seriously. The train cars having a light bulb in them was a startling puzzle. But then, things got more routine. Severe looking woman guards shouting to make sure there was no talking, and the requisite nudity. The Commandant, Herr Erner/Enner clearly was a monster, as some said, but he didn't act like that. His uniform showed attention to detail and he had an obese aide. They threw in some unnecessary liaisons, and that really interrupted the flow of the movie. Herr Enner had a past history with one of the captives, and had a scenario in mind with her that was all too predictable. I felt that everyone was taking the movie too seriously. If one thinks of some memorable movies of this genre, like in the Ilsa series, or even Love Camp 7, they knew what they wanted to be. I am not sure what this movie wanted to be.

For some odd reason I decided to give Deported Women of the SS Special Section a go today and was reasonably pleased. Noticing only one other user comment I felt compelled to give my opinion as well.

The story is fairly easy. A group of women are being held captive in a Nazi prison. Nazi prisons are (as we have all learned in films like Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS and others) is not a happy place. Fortunately you can always take a long soapy shower with your fellow inmates; and they do! I didn't expect much from this one so I became pleasantly surprised. The violence is pretty tame, but the razor blade on a cork in the vagina made me raise an eyebrow as our kinky commandant was about to realize love really can hurt. There's a decent amount of nudity with one of the highlights being the pubic hair shaving, take your time.

Deported Women does remind me to some extent of Salò, although it tends to focus less on the cynical ideology (as most of its kind) giving the whole film a more campy tone. Fine by me. It tries to be a bad boy, but not THAT bad.

In the end I have to say that even though the running time of almost 97 minutes feels a bit too long, the nudity, the violence and the crazy commandant managed to keep me entertained. You could do a lot worse.

As I've seen this film, and no-one else has written anything about it I thought I'd say a few words, not that it is particularly remarkable. If you're even looking at this page you're probably a fan of Italian Exploitation (god help you) and this film is certainly that. It's about women in a Nazi prison, featuring such classic situations as the odd lesbian encounter, sadistic guards, and a lengthy bit of pubic hair shaving.

The plot is handled decently, I guess, being a rare film of this sort that actually provides some interest in the individual characters. This may come from the ridiculously over the top acting (especially from the camp commandant), but at least there is an air of some competence in the production.

In terms of deranged innovation, this film features an eye-opening razor-blade-in-a cork-up-the-vagina manoeuvre to thwart the amorous commandant. That scene, amongst others, contributing to the fact that it was apparently rejected for even Cinema exhibition in Britain. Tragically it occurs quite far into the film, and is not particularly gory or amusing or otherwise of interest. The fact that it is banned probably means more people will seek it out than otherwise would (I know I did).

There are a few scenes like the above, catapulting this film from a routine exploitation movie into something that leaves a bit of a nasty taste in the mouth. Moving from the sort of obviously fake nonsense most films of this kind have, to a seeming attempt to present degrading experiences realistically, for no reason other than whatever kicks viewers can get out of that. Not very many for most people I would expect.

Nonetheless worth seeing if you like the genre I imagine, especially the scene where, in an effort to impress the heroine, the commandant makes two women give him a blow-job (interesting seduction technique, certainly, but then the guy is a Nazi); his facial expression is great. However there's really nothing here that is particularly original, and (as above) will probably leave most feeling a little dirty. Still, no particular reason for it to be banned.