SS HELL CAMP

A.k.a. THE BEAST IN HEAT; SS EXPERIMENT PART 2; LA BESTIA IN CALORE; HORRIFYING EXPERIMENTS OF THE SS LAST DAYS

Sexy Nazi scientist Dr Ellen Kratsch (Macha Magall, SS GIRLS) has developed a drug that she believes will turn SS soldiers into the ultimate reproductive beings.

The film opens with Kratsch demonstrating her breakthrough find to a non-plussed general. He watches in quiet distaste as a female prisoner is thrown into a cage with the "experiment" - a Neanderthal-looking man with an innaturally high sex drive. The girl is assualted repeatedly as the beast quite literally fucks her to death.

Meanwhile, in a nearby Italian town, two members of the local resistance provoke a violent reaction from the Nazis by blowing up one of their busiest railroads.

A hunt for the leaders of the resistance ensues, including a sickening moment where all the women and children in the village are ousted from their homes in an attempt to antagonise the males into showing themselves. This scene ends with a baby being thrown into the air then shot at.

The general becomes involved in the hunt for the resistance, as he has been having sexual relations with one of their top undercover female spies for months. He has her raped in an effort to coax the location of the resistance ringleader from her. Fair play to him, his ploly works a treat.

With their leader caught and their village left all but destroyed, the rebellion vow to stick together and storm the nearby Nazi dwellings. Which means much stock footage ofr earlier WW2 folms follows - in a painfully obvious fashion!

But will the resistance ever get there in time to stop yet more beautiful Italian women being thrown into the beast's cage (yes, I'd forgotten about him too)?

SS HELL CAMP is best known on UK shores as obscure video nasty THE BEAST IN HEAT - notoriously difficult to track down on video since it's disappearance from shelves in the mid 80s.

It's hard-to-find status, coupled with the fact that this film would still surely be rejected by the BBFC even in these liberated times, must therefore make this DVD a tempting proposition for collectors.

And there's plenty to reccommend it. SS HELL CAMP is presented fully uncut and free from any unwelcome censoring (genital fogging etc) - yes, all the tit-tearing and pube-munching is here!

The picture shapes up well after a dodgy first couple of minutes to look vibrant and sharp, with a nice 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer to boast of. It's nigh-on a revelation, in fact, compared to previous video and bootleg versions. There's no avoiding the graininess of the aforementioned stock war movie footage, but, hey ...

The mono audio track (English dubbed) wobbles a little at the start of the program but ultimately is just fine - clear and consistent.

It's nice to see the original theatrical trailer too. It does a sterling job of making the film look as seedy as it is. It makes it look a lot more exciting too!

There's other trailers on offer too, all from the Media Blasters/ Shriek Show roster - including ELSA: FRAULIEN SS and FLESH FOR THE BEAST.

Even the four-page booklet offers up decent liner notes on the Nazisploitation genre.

On the down-side, it has to be said that SS HELL CAMP isn't a very good film. It's boring as hell in-between the "beast" bits (of which there aren't many) and suffers from a terminally pedestrian direction job from Luigi Batzella.

The dialogue is risible, acting stinky and the dubbing reminiscent of that black guy in the POLICE ACADEMY films who apes inept 70s martial arts movie dubbing.

But this is Nazisploitation, and all of the above are negligible in even the best of sauch films. All that is paramount when considering such trash is: how sleazy is it?

SS HELL CAMP is sleazy as fuck!

Lesbianism, torture, child-killing, rape, murder, betrayal, nudity, gore ... we have it all here, served in tasteless abundance. Which is all good and well, it's what we expect - it's just a shame that the rest of the film is so dull!

And while it's nice to see an obscure, hard-to-find cult item finally receive a decent-looking release on R1, it is a shame that the extras are sparse. Understandable, but a shame nevertheless.

Review by Stu Willis