Ilsa, la tigresse du goulag

I loved the other three, but it's easy to see why Jess Franco's Ilsa the Wicked Warden was picked as the third movie in the trilogy, and this one was forgotten. Nowhere near as shocking as any of the others. The best part of the movie is the starting when they're actually in Siberia (most of the movie takes place in like Canada or something). The deaths at the Siberian camp are entertaining, but the chainsaw/arm-wrestling scenes is cut under the title, The Tigress. Over all its a pretty boring action movie.

I don't see what the big deal is here...Almost all the other reviewers seem to hate this film, and I don't really get it. After the goofy, uninspired HAREM KEEPER, and the pretty dull sleaze-fest WICKED WARDEN, I was pleasantly surprised with TIGRESS. It's no masterpiece by any means, but this one had some inventive torture and a decent amount of tits-and-ass. This one has the mammoth-mounded Ilsa playing baby-sitter to a bunch of Russian traitors in the first half of the film, and a Canadian whorehouse madam in the second half. Yes, the story is definitely a little disjointed, almost playing like 2 different films, but I think this one had a good balance between sex and gore, and enough sleazy humor to make it an all-around worthwhile and entertaining entry. Definitely worth checking out if you like the series (or sleazy exploit cinema in general), but you may have a hard time finding it - I don't believe that there is a DVD release as of yet (at least not in the States), so start scouring those old mom-and-pop video stores. Regardless of what the other guys say, I like this one - 8/10

Some films have great stories. Others have thrills, suspense and mystery. This one has a phenomenal pair of breasts. And I have to admit that, all things considered, that's a pretty good production value. Yes, Ilsa the Tigress of Siberia may very well be an uneven movie in many ways but at the end of the day Dyanne Thorne is the only reason to watch this, right? Ms Thorne has a truly eye-popping physique and she gets naked a lot. And that's more or less it really.

The story is hilariously half-hearted. The cold-hearted and massive-chested Ilsa controls a communist gulag where she dominates a group of male dissidents. After a prisoner rebellion the story cuts to Montreal 1977, twenty-five years later. The gap in time is almost impossible to detect as everyone looks exactly the same. But even though I point this out, I really don't care because the filmmakers sure didn't, it makes no difference to this trash-fest. Somehow, Ilsa runs a luxurious whorehouse in this second half of the film, giving ample opportunity to feed us even more nudity and sleaze of course.

There's a bit of gore, quite a lot of torture and loads of T&A. Good enough for me.

Dyanne Thorne's last adventure as the busty shrew Ilsa takes place in Siberia anno 1953, during Stalin's dictatorship. She's the heartless and perverted commandant of `Gulag 14' where political prisoners are getting brainwashed and re-educated in favor of Stalin's ideas. When his reign abruptly ends, Ilsa and her closest companions are forced to flee to Canada. More than 20 years later – during the Montreal Olympics of 1976 – she runs into one of her toughest opponents. She runs a chain of luxurious brothels by now and she uses her power to get even with an old enemy. The initial shock-values of `She Wolf of the SS' are long gone and Ilsa isn't half as creepy as she used to. On the contrary, her actions become more and more dreadful and this film is overall lame. There are a few ingenious torturing methods present in Tigress – like a chainsaw/arm-wrestling contest and drowning in ice-cold water - as well as a lot of soft-core action. Ilsa still guarantees a lot of voyeurism and she now even needs two men at the time, in order to be satisfied. The script is filled with unintentionally hilarious lines, like `Your body is full and warm, like Mother Russia itself' But…even a constant series of naked boobs and bloody mutilation becomes tedious after a while. The Ilsa-series sure prove that. These films have a giant cult following and I'm sure the diehard fans will still enjoy this final installment. If you're more like a random cult-film explorer, I advise you to stop after the first Ilsa film

Tigress starts out promising enough with Ilsa as the kommie kommander of a Siberian gulag. Between torturing political prisoners and feeding them to her tiger, the buxom goddess still finds time for some nightly romps with her rowdy guards and the results are often hilarious. Alas, proceedings take a turn for the worse when the scene shifts to a bordello in Montreal. I mean, when you think of all the gruesome settings in the Ilsa series: a Nazi P.O.W. camp, a Middle Eastern slave harem, an asylum in South America and said gulag, a Montreal bordello really pales in comparison. Furthermore, Ilsa's torture techniques are now performed via a (yawn...) mind control chamber. Instead of physically tormenting her victims, she inflicts psychological torture which results in several highly forgettable hallucinatory sequences. But the producers really missed the boat when they decided to play the latter half as a straight action drama with very little of the campy flair which made the series (and the first part of the movie) so entertaining. Another big mistake was to forego Ilsa's classic transformation from cold-hearted vixen to vulnerable lust-bunny. One of the most appealing (and humorous) aspects of her character was the fact that this femme fatale could be brought to her knees and made a love slave when the right "stud" came along. In Tigress, she's just a one-dimensional sadist from beginning to end. Also missing in action are Ilsa's prerequisite pair of lesbian henchwomen, which makes one wonder if the producers even bothered to watch the first two movies! Even the ending, when Ilsa gets her usual comeuppance, seems largely uninspired and comes across as if they simply ran out of ideas. All in all, Tigress is worthwhile viewing only for true fans of the series. To the uninitiated, I'd suggest Harem Keeper or She Wolf for your first taste of Ilsa's whip.