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Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1975)

Dir: Don Edmonds

Ilsa (Dyanne Thorne) is all woman, all Nazi and all bad!
She is also the head of a medical concentration camp where hideous experiments (including deliberate infection by all known diseases) are carried out on the prisoners.
Some of the women are sterilised and sent to brothels, some are chosen by Doctor Ilsa for her own agenda, because Ilsa is determined to prove that women are the true super race by performing experiments on the female prisoners to see how they handle pain and suffering.

Ilsa is helped in her dreadful experiments by her Nazi, black clad female guards and the sleazy Dr Binz (George ‘Buck’ Flower) and against the pressure of the approaching Allies and her impatient superiors she cuts a sadistic suave through the prisoners.
She hopes to have found a perfect specimen in the tough new arrival Anna (Maria Marx) who refuses to break no matter what hideous tortures Ilsa puts her through.

Then one day a new group of male worker/prisoners arrives and Ilsa takes an instant ‘liking’ to a blonde American named Wolfe (a very wooden Gregory Knoph) whom she soon beds.
Luckily for Wolfe (unlike her other ‘use them up and castrate them away‘ sexual playthings) he is able to hold off reaching his own orgasm, (“I guess you can call me a freak of nature…a Human machine”) resulting in many orgasms for the hungry Ilsa. As such she keeps him alive to pleasure herself and her guards.
And day after day the experiments and the sadism continues…

 

Following the success (especially in Canada) of the Naziploitation first step “Love Camp 7” (1969), some enterprising Canadians came to the conclusion (especially after the release of that true wellspring of this hated sub-genre, "The Night Porter") the success could be repeated and decided to bankroll another slice of Nazi nastiness, only this time it would be truly nasty.
Thus “Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS” was born and it would be this film that would addtrue nastiness and violence, to the eroticism and decadence offred by "The Night Porter", to this most controversial of Exploitation genres.

As soon as the delightfully insincere ‘dedication’ appears at the start of the film, where the producers state that their film only shows the real horrors that were so that they may never happen again, that warm and fluffy blanket of prime era Exploitation envelopes you.
That the very next scenes to appear are a naked Ilsa riding a male prisoner (without satisfaction, as he climaxes too fast. “You should have vaited”), Ilsa then showering down her magnificent breasts and finally Ilsa partaking in a spot of bloody castration on her ’hasty’ sex slave, only goes to hammer home the fact that social conscience and hopes for a better World are far from the minds of anyone involved in “Ilsa”.

And before we go on, lets indeed take a look at some those involved in the movie, as there are a few well known names wallowing in the background, as well as in the mire;
The big plus here is that the legend Dave Friedman was on Producing duties.
Friedman is of course one of the last surviving pioneers of independent film making of the highest Exploitation order and although he would use a pseudonym in the credits after falling out with the Canadian money men, “Ilsa” without doubt benefits from his astute eye.
On FX make-up duties (more details later) is another pioneer, Joe Blasco. Blasco is mostly forgotten outside of genre circles but his groundbreaking blood and ‘bladder FX’ work on Cronenberg’s “Shivers” would be influential indeed for the gore fests that would appear in the 80’s. And his work here is solid indeed, overcoming the budget to deliver some suitably nasty sights.
Debra Hill, one time partner and Producer for John Carpenter, was on Script Supervisor duties, while
Dean Cundey, cinematographer on “Halloween” and “Jurassic Park”, would help shoot part of the film and would go on to lens all of the sequel “Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks”.
And of course a stalwart of Horror and Exploitation (“The Fog”, “They Live”, “Deep Jaws”) George ‘Buck’ Flower, is almost unrecognisable as Dr. Binz.

So we have some welcome names involved behind the scenes and in support, but the success of the film ultimately rests on the shoulders of two people; Director Don Edmonds and Ilsa herself Dyanne Thorne.
Edmonds it has to be said has not injected much pace into proceedings, relying on the nasty set-pieces and Thorne to really hold the interest, but he should be hailed to the stars for not only getting Thorne but for getting the generally excellent looking production working as well as it does with his tiny budget and astonishingly tight schedule…a mere 9 days!
For all it’s small faults, “Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS” is one of the most perfect examples of the balls-put Exploitation movie making mind-set and technique that has as good as vanished as far as real, shot on film, screened at cinemas, film production is concerned.

Dyanne Thorne had been working mostly in comedy before her metamorphosis into Ilsa and she would find it hard to go back to the comedic after her iconic performance. Statuesque, sexy and oh so perfectly formed Thorne dominates the movie and literally makes it a far more satisfying experience than it would otherwise have been. With her pantomime German accent, “Svine! You vill obey orders”, she ridicules the man and makes the women cower. Willing to disrobe whenever the film needs it Thorne makes Ilsa for a sexually strong, and yet also sexually complex, character.
Ilsa screws the prisoners in the hope of gratification, but punishes them FOR screwing her as they are inferior to her. Once they have lain with her they must be silenced and punished for doing so.

And yet she despite the sadism she shows to her victims she is also very much a subordinate and a masochist when it comes to her own sexual satisfaction. When she is with the studly Wolfe she is very much his slave and demands to be abused, “Harder! Hurt me”! “Be cruel…be cruel”. Perhaps it is a subconscious need to be punished for her crimes, or perhaps we’re getting way to deep for an Exploitation film! But it has to be said that either in her fetishist Nazi black uniform, her hysterical Nazi Doctors outfit (complete with swastika armband and open, plunging neckline) or just totally naked, Thorne does bring an extra level to her character’s make-up than is the norm in such films.
The only moment that seems to contradict Ilsa’s personality is in the famous scene where she is urinates (out of frame) on a General (Richard Kennedy) and pulls a face of disgust, something that seemed strange to me at least. If it was the General doing the peeing you could understand, but to have a superior rank male debase himself by begging her to piss on him should have delighted Ilsa, given her general loathing of men (when she is not using them to pleasure herself) and her belief that women are superior.

As we are in the Exploitation realm you would expect to come across many exploitative moments and “Ilsa” certainly makes sure of it.
Female nudity is rampant, not just in the nude inspections of the prisoners and the sex scenes but also during almost all of the experiment/torture sequences. Sparing the victims nothing, Ilsa (and Edmonds of course) makes sure that their fully nude bodies are continuously on display and generally as much pubic hair (especially blood soaked pubic hair) as time allows for is splashed across the screen.
Thorne gives her all in her sex scenes with much moaning and bucking but there’s also a couple of non-Thorne sequences (including a brief, ever essential, lesbian tryst) where many badly tanned breasts are on display.

Gore wise Joe Blasco goes all out, slopping around the red stuff with wild abandon and generally performing (at the time pretty special) FX feats.
Gruesome tortures include toes being mangled with pliers, an exceptionally bloody double flogging.
(with the fully naked, blood streaked bodies later hung up) a blood spewing pressure chamber experiment, skin peeling emersion in boiling water and a maggot infested wound.

We also have a very effective blood pumping cut throat and some of the make-up on the disease ridden women, especially Kata (Nicolle Riddell) whose face has been infected with syphilis and which gets more and more rotten as the film goes on, is suitably revolting.
This is all very gruesome and sadistic of course but tends to fall over the line into camp nastiness due to the general excess and the ripe performances, that is except for one genuinely grotesque and sickening sight, that of a barely living , torture ravaged, cruelly mutilated naked woman (a victim who will deliver one of the film's most truly disturbing and creepy scenes during the finale) lying on a trolley.

Away from the gore the film also delivers a few choice moments of exploitative cruelty including an electrified dildo and the infamous sequence where a naked woman with a noose around her neck is supported on a block of ice, on a dinner table, which slowly melts away as the Nazi’s dine around her.

Despite the obvious lack of funds, Edmonds and Friedman (with the help of some creative set and prop designers) manage to create some very effective sets and furnishings. The torture chambers are nicely dank and dungeon like (with strategic portraits of Himmler and Hitler on the walls), the Nazi’s dining room is kitted out in as much opulence as the supposedly $14 they had to use would allow and the Nazi uniforms are wonderfully over the top and prime fetish material.
Only the uniforms in the male guards look cheap and nasty and really do look like what they probably were, hastily made up costumes.

Edmonds also manages (all shot in one day!) some mostly successful action scenes with a few explosions and even an armoured car making an appearance (even if the budget is now being truly stretched) and only some very clumsy slow motion and the odd very strange gunshot sound, stand out as poor. Certainly the (now famous) ability to use the old sets of 60’s TV hit “Hogan’s Heroes” for the camp were a real blessing to the production.
The use of an authentic German song (Horst Wessel’s "Die Fahne hoch", which would appear in numerous productions, including “Triumph of the Will” itself) also adds a nice sense of realism to the film, even when other budgetary glitches try to take you out of it.
And, dear reader, if all that was not enough “Ilsa” also delivers a rather nice finale double twist.

The film may lack a bit of energy when it’s not being exploitative (which is thankfully not often) and may rely a bit too much on Thorne to carry it, but it still has the power to revolt and even shock, it’s very existence is a marvel of low, low budget independent film production and it paved the way for many to follow. And for all that “Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS” deserves her fame and of course her infamy.