Released: 1974
Budget: $150,000
Directed by: Don Edmonds
Produced by: David Friedman (credited as: Herman Traeger)
Starring:
What is it?
Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS is one strange movie. First, it's part of a fairly small selection of
sexploitation films that revolve around
sadism (
Blood Sucking Freaks,
The Bamboo Doll House). It's your basic "
women in prison" movie, but just a bit
more so. It's also part of a disturbing sub-genre of prison films that are dedicated to
Nazi prison camps (
Last Orgy of the Third Reich,
Love Camp 7). The story is based very loosely on
Ilse Koch. It's achieved a definite cult status, mainly by
word of mouth. Most people who hunt it down (which isn't that hard to do anymore) are interested in it mainly because of the
taboo associate with the
genre. In all honesty, the film's reputation far outweighs its actual content.
Synopsis
The story revolves around
Ilsa, a sex-maniac/mad scientist who is in charge of the medical expirements on the women at Medical Camp 9. Her "medical expirements" involve lethal drug injection, electric nipple clamps, and an electric
dildo. Ilsa's ultimate goal from these expirements is to prove that women can withstand more pain than men, thus they should be able to fight on the front lines. That's the "mad scientist" part. The sex-maniac bit is that she regularly has sex with the male prisoners, then
castrates them because they fail to satisy her. That's the state of affairs before an American prisoner named Wolfe arrives.
Wolfe has a "special talent" that Ilsa becomes interested in: he has the ability to to control his
orgasms and can satisfy Ilsa. Ilsa, recognizing his talent, does not have him
castrated. Wolfe uses this to his advantage and meets with the other prisoners to plan their escape and revenge. After Wolfe leaves Ilsa tied to the bed, the prisoners run wild in an orgy of revenge. In the end, only Wolfe and his girlfriend Kala (the only female prisoner not to be tortured for some strange reason) escape. The rest of the prisoners are butchered by German soldiers, who then burn the camp down to prevent the
Allies from discovering it.
That's pretty much the gist of the story. Of course, intermingled with it are scenes of
torture,
mayhem, and a more than a bit of
T&A. The torture scenes are very, very gruesome: slow hangings, maggot infested legs, gang rapes, the previously mentioned electric dildo, and it just goes on. I'll spare you a detailed account of every torture scene. Oh yeah, in a bit of strange irony, the it was filmed on the no-longer-used set of
Hogan's Heroes. (It was subsequently burned down for the big finale.)
The Review
The generally two schools of thought when it comes to the various reviews of this film. The first being that it's a powerful, gory flick that reminds us about the horrible Nazi attrocities. It brought forth a commanding and powerful vision of woman, and set a new highbar for exploitation films (or lowbar, considering how you see it). The second being that it's just what it looks like: a trashy, violent
women in prison movie made on almost no budget.
I'll go with the second one,
thankyouverymuch. In short, it's a WIP movie using the
Nazi prison camp as a convenient background (though it does stand out for its increased violence). I'm all for great film making within the horror genre, but we have to tag crap when we see it. This movie is undoubtedly crap. Now, of course it doesn't mean it's
bad and that you shouldn't watch it. In fact, if you think you can stomach it you
should watch it, just like you should watch
Dolemite or any other number of exploitation films.
I won't deny that there's some powerful imagery contained in it, but instead that it's so horribly executed that it almost borders on
parody. I loathe to mention the
fight scenes, which mainly involve punching one foot to the right of anyone's head. Dyanne Thorne's
german accent is hilarious: "Ju vill satisvy me!" Simply, this movie is a must for people who hunt down bad movies.
The Aftermath
After its release, the film made 10 million dollars in the box office. That's some serious money for something that was only shown in adult theatres. It also managed to ruin
Dyanne Thorne's career, who was forever typecast as "Ilsa." Also, realizing how disgusting the final outcome was, the producer,
David F. Friedman, removed his name in the credits and replaced it with Herman Traeger (This is the guy who previously made movies called
The Big Snatch and
The Erotic Adventures of Zorro). The film's success eventually spawned three "sequels":
- Ilsa, The Tigress of Siberia
- Ilsa, The Wicked Warden
- Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks
None of these were truly "sequels". Instead, they were movies made within the same vein (all starring Dyanne Thorne) which were later renamed.