|
|
 |
|
Review
by
Brian Lindsey
|
 |
|
3
|
|
 |
|
5 |
|
10
= Highest Rating |
|
|
Following
the company's release of SS
Girls in May, Media Blasters —
under the auspices of its Exploitation Digital
imprint — unleashes
even more Naziploitation nastiness with SS
Experiment Love Camp (aka Lager SSadis
Kastrat Kommandantur).
Germany may be fighting a multi-front war
but long range biological projects continue as
if total victory is assured. One such project
is run by the icy Col. von Kleiben (Giorgio Cerioni),
an SS officer with 1970s hair and sideburns who
had his testicles bitten off in Russia. (Never
ask a woman you're about to rape to give you a
blow... Didn't he see Cross
of Iron?) Female political prisoners are brought
to von Kleiben's secret camp to have sex with
Wehrmacht troops as part of a breeding study —
at least the compliant, decent-looking ones, that
is. The Plain Janes and the uncooperative are
murdered in the course of cruel experiments by
von Kleiben's lesbian assistant (Patrizia Melega),
your stereotypical Fraulein Doktor who justifies
it all for the glory of the Third Reich. (Couldn't
they have at least cast a semi-sexy actress? This
one looks like a younger Miss Hathaway from The
Beverly Hillbillies.) In charge of the camp's
SS guard detachment is a bald, boorish sergeant
(Serafino Profumo) who farms out the inmates to
a local whorehouse. A sadistic bull dyke trustee
in cahoots with him makes life even more miserable
for the girls, to include extracurricular torture
and murder.
Along with the familiar
lineup of villains we get the clichéd 'good
Nazi falls for prisoner' routine. One of the Wehrmacht
studs, panzer sergeant Helmut Kruger (Mircha Carven),
hits it off with the
foxiest of the inmates, Mirelle
(Paola Corazzi). They fall in love; Helmut
grows desperate as the time approaches for him
to return to duty on the Russian front. Von Kleiben
then offers him an unexpected deal: volunteer
for special experimental surgery and a permanent
posting at the camp can be arranged. Wishing to
stay with Mirelle, Helmut instantly says jawohl.
And boy howdy, is he ever gonna regret it!
SS Experiment Love
Camp is actually rather well-directed by
the standards of the Naziploitation genre but
it's just too talky and lethargic. The film is
further hindered by conspicuously threadbare production
values — even Santo
movies have better lab equipment. But the main
problem is that it doesn't show any particular
enthusiasm for the exploitation elements. Basically,
the sleaze rarely rises to the level of 'good'
sleaze and the cheese rarely rises to level of
'good' cheese. The sex is tedious and most of
the ladies aren't really all that attractive.
(In fairness I realize they're supposed to be
concentration camp victims. But this is
an exploitation pic, after all...) Unfortunately
the acting is just bad, not amusingly bad. Same
goes for the dubbing. If not for Helmut's little
rampage at the end there wouldn't be much of anything
to laugh at.
In the film's most infamous scene, Helmut
is getting it on with Mirelle after the operation
(there's like zero recovery time needed for these
surgeries, apparently) when he suddenly realizes
that he's missing the family jewels. Not taking
this discovery very well, he grabs a Schmeisser
and some grenades and starts wiping out the camp
guards on a path to the colonel's door. Finally
confronting von Kleiben (who's trying out his
newly transplanted 'nads with one of the female
prisoners), he blurts out, "How ya doing
with my balls?"... Needless to say, Helmut
probably deserves to have his nuts cut off for
being so stupid —
he never bothered to ask exactly what the
operation was!
|
|
|
This
isn't the first DVD edition of SS
Experiment Love Camp. Back in January another
company put out a crappy fullscreen edition ripped
from a lousy-looking VHS dupe. Happily the Exploitation
Digital disc uses a much higher quality transfer
in the film's original aspect ratio (1.85:1, 16x9
enhanced). While the print periodically exhibits
minor damage and seems a tad faded at times —
mostly during the main titles sequence (which appears
to have come from a different source) —
it's head and shoulders above any previous home
video incarnation. Audio quality isn't quite as
laudable, however. The mono track, though distortion
and static-free, renders many passages of dialog
so low as to be almost inaudible. I had to go back
and listen to parts of the movie using headphones
to catch everything being said.
Chief among the disc's bonus features is
a new 10-minute video interview with director Sergio
Garrone. Amazingly Garrone maintains a serious attitude
about what is nothing more than a trashy exploitation
picture, made quickly and on the cheap. He claims
to have done a great deal of historical research
in preparation for the film, although this apparently
didn't extend to the proper uniforms. (SS officers'
tunics are shown with the Nazi eagle above the right
breast pocket when in reality it should be on the
upper left sleeve. Only the SS wore the eagle this
way; it's a glaring error, easily revealed by looking
at virtually any book of World War II photographs.)
Even more astonishingly, Garrone posits the theory
that Naziploitation films have a beneficial
social impact (!) in that they educate stupid people,
or those too lazy to read, about the atrocities
of the Hitler regime. Funny... but I thought they
were just sleazy, violent T & A flicks —
for which Nazi Germany makes a conveniently decadent,
murderous milleux. Where, I wonder, are all the
'Commieploitation' epics about the horrors of Stalin's
gulags? (On second thought, it was probably best
to stick with the Third Reich... The SS had much
cooler looking uniforms than the NKVD.)
A still gallery, the original theatrical
trailer and promos for other Media Blasters/Exploitation
Digital DVDs (SS Hell
Camp, SS Girls,
Porno Holocaust
and Yellow Emanuelle)
complete the package.
8/12/05 |
| UPDATE
On March 25, 2008 Media Blasters is re-releasing
SS Experiment Love Camp
as part of the 3-disc SS Hell
Pack Triple Feature, which also includes
SS Girls and SS
Camp: Women's Hell. The
box set will sell for less than one of the stand-alone
DVDs. |
HOME
| REVIEWS
| TOP
|
