Saturday 15 March 2014

Ilsa She Wolf of the SS.


"The film you are about to see is based upon documented fact. The atrocities shown were conducted as 'medical experiments' in special concentration camps throughout Hitler’s Third Reich. Although these crimes against humanity are historically accurate, the characters depicted are composites of notorious Nazi personalities; and the events portrayed, have been condensed into one locality for dramatic purposes. Because of its shocking subject matter, this film is restricted to adult only. We dedicate this film with the hope that these heinous crimes will never occur again"[1]. 



The forces of evil.

The notice at the beginning of this blog is what we see before the mayhem commences. The film opens with a naked Ilsa on top of an equally naked male prisoner fornicating, as he does not manage to satisfy the sex mad commandant of Medical Camp Nine his penis is amputated and added to her collection. In the next scene we witness two trucks arrive at the camp, one with men in the back who are deposited at the camp for work purposes which includes fodder for Ilsa’s voracious appetite, and the second is full of women who are to be used for sadistic medical experiments which involves injecting the women with deadly decease’s and then attempting, normally unsuccessfully, to cure them.  Also they are used for the sexual gratification of camp guards and high-ranking Nazi visitors. While Ilsa is helping herself to an American prisoner who can miraculously control his ejaculation and understands her craving for pain whilst German patriotic music plays in the background, two women are being flogged by a pair of topless female SS officers while another women is being savagely raped and eventually killed by five male and one female guard.


The experiments.


It is alleged that the character of Ilsa is patterned after two real life murderous female’s including Ilse Koch the wife of a commandant of the concentration camps Buchenwald and Majdanek and who was accused of being 'the concentration camp murderess' and suspected of taking souvenirs from the skin of murdered inmates with distinctive tattoos. The other is said to be Irma Grese who was the youngest women to die judicially under English law in the 20th century at the age of 22 years 67 days. Known as The Beast of Belsen or The Beautiful Beast. The accusations against her centred on her ill treatment and murder of those imprisoned at the camps. These included: setting guard dogs on inmates to savage them, arbitrary shootings and sadistic beatings with a whip. Survivors provided detailed testimony of murders, tortures, and other cruelties, especially towards women, acts in which Grese engaged during her years at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. They testified to acts of sadism, beatings and arbitrary shootings of prisoners, savaging of prisoners by her trained and allegedly half-starved dogs, and to her selecting prisoners for the gas chambers. Grese was reported to have habitually worn heavy boots and carried a whip and a pistol. Witnesses testified that she took pleasure in using both physical and psychological methods to torture the camp's inmates and enjoyed shooting prisoners in cold blood. They also claimed that she beat some women to death and whipped others using a plaited whip.[2]
 
The cruelty.

The ultimate punishment.

Bad acting, with over the top fake German accents and a really dodgy script is what you would expect from a film of this calibre, and with apologies to Kenny Everett 'it's all in the worst possible taste'. Rejected by the BBFC and banned in Australia and Norway Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS (1975) is an American Nazi exploitation movie directed by Don Edmonds, a man bestknown for this kind of low budget movie, and written by Jonah Royston. The central role of Ilsa is taken by the buxom American actress, nude model and former Las Vegas showgirl
Dyanna Thorne best known for her role in this film and three other Ilsa sexploitation movies. A grindhouse movie par excellence that you will watch with fascination and marvel how on earth does this type of film come to be made with its gratuitous violence, mainly against women, and lashings of naked ladies and sex. My copy was an uncut version from Korea available via E-Bay if you’re interested?



[1] Herman Traeger Producer
[2] Excerpts from The Belsen Trial.

1 comment:

  1. What a coincidance. I downloaded this one. Its one of those VHS movies I didn't dare to take home when I was a teenager :)

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