The most feared Nazi of them all: Ilsa

Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1975)
Starring: Dyanne Thorne, Sandi Richman, Jo Jo Deville, Gregory Knoph, Tony Mumolo, Uschi Digard, Maria Marx, Nicolle Riddell, and Georoge "Buck" Flowers
Director: Don Edmonds
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Ilsa, the big-breasted Nazi commandant of a concentration camp (Thorne), supervises a series of "medical experiments" that involve torturing women in the most gruesome and unusual fashions. Her hope is to prove that women are more psyscially tough than men, so that Hitler and his generals were allow them to serve on the frontlines of war. She is also on a quest for the ultimate orgasm... and when the freakishly well-endowed prisoner-of-war Wolfe (Knoph) is placed in her camp, she may well achieve it.

I don't often use posters with all the logos and taglines in place to illustrate articles, but the original one for this movie captures everything it's about with such accuracy that I simply had to use it.


One of the truest statements on the poster is that it's a "Different Kind of X." This is a movie that puts the "porn" in "torture porn." The various female torture victims are completely naked while they are cut, stabbed, frozen, cooked, beaten, raped and everything else in between. Ilsa is a sadistic maniac who would give Jigsaw and his girlfriend from the "Saw" series nightmares.

This isn't the sort of film I watch because I'm looking for entertainment; if I hadn't declared the "Nazis Quit!" mini-blogathon, I probably never would have watched a Nazi torture porn film. The too realistic violence in films like this make me ache in the various parts of my body where I've had broken bones or deep cuts, and all the screaming sets my nerves on edge. I had an idea of what I was in for when I slated this film for review--it was legendary when I was a kid and I dissuaded my friends from trying to rent it back when we were young teens and my family was the first with a VCR in the neighborhood--but I had no idea how bad it was.

Not "bad" in the sense of incompetent filmmaking and lousy acting [for the most part... a couple of cast-members must have been sleeping with the director or producer in real life, or I can't see how they ever made it past an audition, and some of the put-on German accents are hilariously awful). No, I'm referring to the fact that five minutes doesn't pass in the film where there isn't a scene of violent sex or brutal torture. It is amazing how much they managed to cram into one movie.

There is so much crammed in here, so much that had me cringing and squirming and making me wonder if I'd ever have an appetite again that the film virtually flew by. I think this is quite possibly one of the most effectively paced films I've ever seen. In fact, I think the only other movie that's had that effect on me--causing me to lose track of how much is left of the movie--once I started watching films with an eye toward writing reviews was "JFK." As much as it made me uncomfortable, I have to give the director credit for keeping me engrossed even as I was repulsed by what I was watching.


While this is without question a sleazy B-movie, it's a testament to its effectiveness that it's very watchable (assuming you want to watch scenes of rape and torture). When a film works as hard to be as offensive as this one is, it is usually boring or unintentionally hilarious. Neither is the case with this film. Heck, I wish there were scenes that were unintentionally funny, because I might be able to have some dinner right about now if there had been. (The closest we get is when Gregory Knoph tries to act, or even deliver lines. It's little wonder that this was his first and only screen credit.)

There are few films I've seen that make Nazis more disgusting that how they are portrayed in "Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS." The sad part is that many of the horrible acts shown in this film probably were perpetrated on human beings in real life.

If you're looking for a sleazy Nazi movie, you won't go wrong if you can lay your hands on a copy of this movie; it seems to be out of print in the United States--I borrowed the copy I viewed from a friend who gave me a long warning about the film, because he knows my tastes do not run in this direction. (He also lent me some other, lesser Nazi "torture porn" films which I will watch for the blogathon once my stomach settles.)

However, if you're a pain-numbed gorehound who thinks "Saw" is for pussies and "Urban Flesh" is too tame, maybe you will find yourself disappointed with what this, unarguably, superior early example of the "torture porn" horror subgenre.

Immortal Nazis add confusion to 'Cataclysm'

Cataclysm
(aka "The Nightmare Never Ends" "Shiver", and "Satan's Supper") (1981)
Starring: Cameron Mitchell, Marc Lawrence, Faith Clift, Robert Bristol, and Richard Moll
Directors: Philip Marshak and Tom McGowan
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A doctor (Clift) is chosen by God to be the one person who can defeat Satan's immortal servant on Earth (Lawrence). Will she act before it's too late, or will she listen to her militantly Atheist husband (Moll)? Meanwhile, a Holocaust survivor (Bristol) and a cop (Mitchell) are also on the trail of Satan's chosen one.


"Cataclysm" is a disaster of a movie. Most of the actors are terrible (Mitchell, Bristol, and Moll being the only exceptions), the storyline is confused (although it is less confused than the boiled-down version of this film that was featured in anthology film "Night Train to Terror") and the film is padded to a degree that has rarely been seen (with the nightmares suffered by Claire being especially annoying s far as that goes). Although the script tackles some interesting issues--God and faith, the nature of evil--its quality is obscured by bad artistic and technical choices on the part of the editor and director, and truly awful delivery of the lines on the part of most of the actors. Faith Clift, who is called upon to carry much of the movie is especially awful.

And then there's the inclusion of the Nazi angle. I don't doubt that an immortal devil would be involved with the likes of Hitler and his gang of loonies, but would he really be so stupid so as to be a hands-on kinda guy? At the rate the Nazis liked to turn on their own, he would be better off as a quiet manipulator instead of an SS officer who runs around machine-gunning Jews. (The whole Nazi angle doesn't add much to the film beyond distraction anyway. It might have been a stronger film if the whole plot with Cameron Mitchell and the Holocaust survivor had been dropped entirely. Or saved for a different movie.)

As far as I know, this full-length version of the film is only available on DVD in multipacks--such as large collections like the "Nightmare Worlds 50 Movie Pack". In most cases, there will be enough other films for this one to not be that big a deal, but I would not recommend spending money on a stand-alone version. (And I'd save this one until you've watched everything else in the set.)

Beware Nazi Zombies when skinny dipping

Zombie Lake (1981)
Starring: Howard Vernon, Pierre-Marie Escourrou, Marcia Sharif, Robert Foster, Anouchka Lesoeur, Youri Rad and Burt Altman
Director: Jean Rollin
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

French resistance fighters toss a bunch of dead German soldiers into a lake that was cursed by witches centuries before. A decade later, they emerge from their watery grave to rape and drown skinny-dipping girls and murder villagers.



This is one of those movies where you wonder if anyone read the entire script at any point during production. The film is disjointed with the various plot threads barely connecting or seeming to have drifted in from another movie, the characters' behavior inexplicable at almost every turn, and the zombies being inconsistent and just downright weird.

The inconsistency and weirdness of the film, however, also keeps it entertaining. Time and again, you will marvel at the the Olympic-record setting leaps of logic by characters, gasp at the Grand Canyon-sized plot holes, and shutter at the thought of what sort of writers would come up with the perverted zombies featured in this film. Not only are they Nazi Zombies, but they are Rapist Nazi Zombies. (Of course, any girl atheletes dumb enough to go skinny-dipping in a lake as dirty as the one in his film probably needed to be drowned and raped by Nazi Zombies before they had a chance to fill the world with idiot offspring.)

A steady flow of "did I just see what I thought I saw/hear what I thought I heard moments keep the movie entertaining in a trainwreck sort of way, but the Three rating is about as low as it can possible go without being a Two. It reflects the fact that as awful as this movie is, it's never boring. Heck, compared to "Oasis of the Zombies" (which was produced by the same crew of French film bottom feeders) this is an outright masterpiece.





Speaking of "Oasis of the Zombies", click here to read my review at Movies to Die Before Seeing.

Nazis get creamed by tiny puppets

See Nazis get cut down to size by creatures who match their size as far as the level of respect they deserve.

Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge (1991)
Starring: Guy Rolfe, Richard Lynch, Ian Abercrombie, Kristopher Logan, Aron Eisenberg, Sarah Douglas and Walter Gotell
Director: David DeCoteau
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

When a vicious Gestapo commander (Lynch) murders his wife Elsa (Douglas), Andre Toulon (Rolfe), a puppeteer with the ability to bring his puppets to full and independent life, turns his creations from instruments of mirth and entertaiment into tools of hatred and revenge.



"Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge" takes viewers back to a time fifty years before the events of the other films to fill in some of the backstory of the magic puppets that are the main monsters of the film, and to explain why they and their creator is so hate-filled and driven by an urge to destroy.

(It's not quite in step with "Puppet Master II", but then it doesn't seem to fit well with anything else in the series. As a matter of fact, none of the various Puppet Master movies are perfect fits for each other as far as continuity goes.)

The film has a cast that's each perfect in the role that they play, with the classical-featured Guy Rolfe as Andre Toulon and ferret-faced Richard Lynch as the dispicable Major Krause being giving especially noteworthy performances, and a script that actually feels like it could been lifted from a horror movie set during the time the film takes place. (In fact, the pacing of this movie and the style of the dialogue is one of the things that makes this movie so good... it has a classic 1940s-era horror film feel to it, while still delivering all the Full Moon stop animation and creepy puppets that we expect. Leech Woman is as gross here as she ever was. That we witness her tragic origin makes her even grosser in some ways' I wonder if Toulon ever had a lucid moment in which he asked himself, "Why in God's name did I do that to what was supposed to be an immortalization of my wife's beauty?!")


"Puppet Master III" forms a bridge between the horror world inhabited by the likes of Bela Lugosi, George Zucco, and Lionel Atwill, and the modern B-movie horror era of Full Mooon regulars Jeffrey Combs, Tim Thomerson and Robin Sydney. It's a film I think any lover of cheesy horror flicks can find something to like in. (Plus, we get to watch Nazi Ubermenchen be killed by tiny puppets while shreiking like schoolgirls. How can you not love a movie like that?)

Even death and Hitler can't stop rock 'n' roll

Hard Rock Zombies (1984)
Starring: Ted Wells, E.J. Curcio, Jennifer Coe, Lisa Toothman, Jack Bliesener, Susan Prevatte, and Phil Fondacaro
Director: Krishna Shah
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Four rock musicians (led by E.J. Curcio) on the cusp of making it big are murdered by Adolph Hitler (Bliesener) and Eva Braun (Prevatte) who are alive and well and hiding in California with their sexy daughter (Toothman) who lures innocent travelers to their death with the promise of hot sex. However, underage metal groupie Cassie (Coe) plays one of the band's songs that is based on a medeival chant that raises the dead, so the rockers can take their revenge on Hitler and his clan, as well as play their big gig. Sooner than you can say "I can't believe this movie actually got made", the town is overrun by zombies, and the band's manager (Wells) must save not only the virginal Cassie but the entire world.

"Hard Rock Zombies" is one of those movies that's so bad it's good... or almost good in this particular case, because it has a fatal flaw. It doesn't take itself seriously, and the creators obviously knew they were making an incredibly goofy movie (with a werewolf grandma, midgets, zombies, and Hitler, how could they not?), and this sense of fun greatly helps the movie along.

Among the comedy highlights are the various members of the Hitler Clan; a Nazi zombie midget's pursuit of lovers in the woods and his later attempt to devour a cow; the townsfolks various schemes to escape death by the teeth of the flesh-eating zombies, and the manager's speech to the record label executive (who has been zombiefied).

However, what keeps this film from rising to the level of a truly good bad movie is the awful music. The songs that we are treated to (three of them, in their excrutiating entirety) are so awful that I thanked God for the 2x speed setting on my DVD player.

I never have understood why these films that feature a supposedly great band are so often plagued with the most atrociously boring songs. When I worked a music reviewer, I have dozens and dozens of tapes from up-and-coming and completely undiscovered bands in my office, and I'm certain that anyone of them would have let movie producers use their songs for very little cash. In fact, those songs may even have been acquired cheaper than those atrocities written specifically for the crappy movies in which they're heard. (And I'm certain a music critic such as myself would have directed a producer to one of his favorite "undiscovereds" for very little , or perhaps even just a thank-you in the credits of the movie.)

But, the producers of "Hard Rock Zombies" didn't do that. So, we've got long, tortourous sequences of this band that gets praised by a big time record producer as being great, something that breaks the audience's ability to suspend their disbelief (and this in a film featuring werewolves, Hitler, and zombie midgets).

(Another possible drawback to the film is the pedopheliac tendencies of the band leader, Jessie. My first thought was "he's a pretty nice guy" when he seemed to be friendly toward the shy, very underage Cassie. But then he started writing love-songs to her and borderline stalking her. I can't quite get a read on what the intention of the writers and director was with Jessie's attraction to jail-bait, but it's disturbing upon reflection. Although I'm sure it would be Roman Polanski's favorite thing about the film.)





This review was posted as part of the an observance of the 65th anniversary of the final defeat of Nazi Germany.