Nazi exploitation  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Revision as of 10:19, 9 November 2008

Nazi exploitation (also Nazisploitation) is a subgenre of exploitation film and sexploitation film that involves villainous Nazis committing criminal acts of sexual nature often as camp or prison overseers in World War II settings. The most infamous title (and the one that set the standards of the genre) is perhaps Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1974), a Canadian production. However, European countries, especially Italy had produced a large number of Nazi exploitation films until the 1980s. Prominent directors of the genre include Paolo Solvay (La Bestia in Calore (The Beast in Heat aka SS Hell Camp)) (1977), Cesare Canevari (L'ultima orgia del III Reich ) (1977), and Alain Payet (Train spécial pour SS (Hitler's Lust Train aka Love Train for SS) (1977).

History

A blend of sexual imagery and Nazi themes was to be found as early as Des Teufels General (The Devil's General) (1955) by Helmut Käutner but many believe that the advent of the European Nazi exploitation film came as an attempt to leach off the success of Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS (1974). Whereas this is partly true, the Nazi exploitation subgenre presented an opportunity for Italian studios to make very low cost horror pictures whilst tapping a previously ignored market - the exploitation war film. The Italian films are different to "Ilsa" in many ways - they focus on far more extreme aspects of human abuse (the most extreme example is probably in SS Hell Camp).

Themes

Most of the Nazi exploitation films have concentration camp settings with young female inmates. Their tormentors are female or male Nazi officers in SS uniforms, usually speaking with a fake German accent and irrelevant or mispronounced German words, who often use "experiments" as excuses to implement sadistic physical violence. There are scenes of sexual conduct or, more routinely, exposed nude bodies of the victimised inmates. The level of violence depicted in these films may often reach the gore level.

There are also many films that do not follow the conventions of Nazi exploitation, such as Bordel SS (1978) of José Bénazéraf, Salon Kitty (1976) of Tinto Brass. These films are not usually considered as "prototypical" Nazi exploitation films and qualify more for the "art house" sub-genre. However, because of the vague term, even the film Il portiere di notte (The Night Porter) (1974) by Liliana Cavani that obviously lacks the exploitation motive may be deemed one.

Video Nasty Status

Sometime in the early 1980s, Nazi exploitation films made their way onto the British market, made popular by the growing VHS home video technology. With major Hollywood studios steering clear of the new format, it was left to small, domestic companies to populate the shelves with tapes. A small company from England, GO Video, purchased the rights to an Italian film named SS Experiment Camp. The company ran a marketing campaign with full page ads showing a naked woman hanging from her feet, a swastika dangling from her wrist and an SS commander looming in the background. Adverts for the film in video rental stores became a target for protestors, who picketed such stores and petitioned for the film to be banned. After the Video Recordings Act, most of the Nazi exploitation films (labelled 'Nazi Nasties') became illegal in the UK. The following Nazi exploitation films were banned:

• SS Experiment Camp (SS Experiment/Lager SSadis Kastrat Kommandantur)
• The Beast In Heat (SS Hell Camp/La Bestia in Calore)
• Gestapo's Last Orgy (Last Orgy of The Third Reich/Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler/L'ultima orgia del III Reich)
• Love Camp 7
• Deported Women of the SS Special Section (Le Deportate della sezione speciale SS)

Of the above films, only SS Experiment Camp is now available in the UK.

Bibliography

The genre is documented in Kamp Kulture : A History of Nazi Exploitation (2003) by Simon Whitechapel. (Creation Books).