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SS Camp 5: Women's Hell -aka "SS Lager 5 l'inferno delle donne" (1977)

Dir: Sergio Garrone

Vincenzo Amici
Giorgio Cerioni
Paola Corazzi
Paola D'Egidio
Attilio Dottesio
Rita Manna
Paola Lelio

The opening credits, over actual Concentration Camp stills of the cadaverous corpses of Nazi victims and accompanied by sombre stings, forewarn the viewer that they are about to view a film not suitable for those of a politically correct disposition.
From the start the whole thing reeks of a bygone era of Exploitation.

A group of women prisoners are 'welcomed' to the Camp, "you are here for science and for the comfort of our soldiers. You're life as leeching parasites on the German Reich has put you high on the list of undesirables".
The women are split into two groups, one for experimentation and the other for working in the German guard's whorehouse ("Always keep your body fresh and alive, your faces smiling and happy and you'll find life here most pleasant"). The strongest of this latter group is Arlena, a Jamaican fighting for the French Partisans no less!

The Camp is run by the sadistic SS officer Hans who looks more Oriental than German) and the experiments carried out by a Colonel Strasser and Dr Karl and are meant to find an effective ointment to treat burns on German soldiers
This involves coating an area of skin on the live victim and setting it alight to give them a burn to treat.

A male Jewish prisoner, Prof. Abraham, is forced to work for the Nazi's under threat of death for himself and his captive Daughter, Edith, but he makes it known he does not believe the experiments are worthy and is appalled at the way the prisoners are brutally used and he has a steadfast belief that right will fight through in the end.

Meanwhile the women are planning to escape from their hellish prison……

 

The slightly tamer "SS Experiment Camp" is actually the film director Sergio Garrone is most infamous for, mostly down to it's wider distribution and the fact it was one of the key titles of the UK 'Video Nasties' scare of the 80's and sported a notorious cover of a topless, upside down, crucified woman.
But "SS Camp 5" is perhaps the film he should be known for as, even with it's faults, it's filled with the kind of gratuitous nastiness that Exploitation's much maligned sub-genre, 'Naziploitation', is known for.

Lets get the negatives out of the way first.
Garrone is obviously there simply to say "Action" and "Cut" and make sure that enough nudity and nastiness is captured on film before it's time to go home.
His direction and the cinematography are drab and lacklustre. There is nothing much here except a "Stick the camera there and film what happens" mentality. Take away the images being captured and the film would be totally bereft of life for the most part.

Dubbing in universally bad from an 'artistic' and technical point of view, even more so than most of these Euro Trash creations.
Acting is, even by those playing the 'nasty Nazis', pretty much lacking in energy and none of the characters stand out.

So it's clear that this is a film of content and attitude. A film purely designed to work as Exploitation. There is almost none of the, even slightly complex, scripting seen in something like "Gestapo's Last Orgy".
This is basically pure Trash Cinema with only rudimentary nods to any serious character study.

A standout moment of unintentional humour is when Arlena dances in front of the besotted Colonel Strasser ("Why does a White man like myself…find a Black girl like you so irresistible"?), naked except for a banana tied around her groin!
But this is a rare example; most of the exploitation is effectively serious and seriously effective.

After the ever-essential group shower scene the first real exploitation hit the movie supplies is in the depiction of the experiments.
Topless women have a thick flammable liquid spread on a part of their body which is then set on fire and as the women scream in agony, the Nazi scientists gaze in fascination at the damage being done.
These scenes are well crafted from a FX standpoint and genuinely nasty due to the victim's reaction and the horrible sound of sizzling skin.

Plenty of general nudity (including many full frontal scenes of Arlena) is spread throughout the film's running time, along with the staple 'Nazi orgy' sequence (very weak) and clumsy sexual fumbling. But it's all pretty much average for this type of film.
It's in the acts of random sadism where the film shows its strengths, for want of a better word.

A scene in one of the ovens is particularly twisted and unnerving but the real shocker is a very nasty torture chamber sequence with four naked, tied-up prisoners.
Finger nails being pulled out, fingers being set on fire, a stomach ripped open with a pointed knuckle-duster and a head being slowly crushed are just some of the ordeals they, and the viewer, go though.
This sequence does not quite match the gross sadism of it's equivalent in "The Beast in Heat" but it gets pretty damn close and is generally a full-on stomach churner.
And the matter of fact disposal of the broken, naked bodies in the ovens, which twitch and jerk as the flames engulf them (edited into a rape scene no less!) is about as vile as 'Naziploitation' gets. The oven footage itself seems to be culled from Garrone's "SS Experiment Camp", as are most of the cast.

A different kind of nastiness assails the audience when the Scientists tell Hans they want more prisoners to experiment on.
In defence of his negative response Hans coldly outlines the net cost and worth of a prisoner's life, from the cost of 'keeping' them to what their ashes are worth as fertiliser, set to actual footage, tinted a dirty yellow/green, of Concentration Camp victims. It's pure exploitation. Crass, politically incorrect but effective in what it sets out to do.

So it most certainly has the ingredients for a top notch Exploitation dish but sadly, as mentioned above, it's all presented with a lack of any real energy.

The finale provides a few, rather well staged and satisfying, action sequences with a welcome boost in the budget, ultimately making "SS Camp 5:Women's Hell" an effective slice of nasty Nazi Exploitation overall, but one that could have been better if it had been enthused with some real directorial energy.
But at least Garrone seems to have learnt a few lessons after "SS EXperiment Camp", and "SS Camp 5" is the superior of his two attempts at basically the same film.