03/03/2012: Ilsa She Wolf of the SS [1975]

Most people will never venture far off the theater showed, well advertised, blockbuster budget movies that everyone has heard about. Those who search a little may come across many great foreign and indie films. People are always talking about classic movies and how everyone still watches them today. But it is not until someone ventures quite far off of Hollywood boulevard and into the dark woods that they will find the likes of Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS.


Many people enjoy watching classic movies, and their is no community bigger than the horror community that enjoys watching nearly century old movies. Along with that comes our great love of cult classics, movies that pushed the boundaries of cinema but never made it mainstream. These movies often have very strong but very small fan subcultures.

Within the subgenres of cinema is the hidden hundreds of exploitation movies, ones that exploit some kind of lurid subject matter. The subsubgenres within are many, the wikipedia page is extensive, however when it comes to some of the more famous exploitation movies Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS, stands out as one of the greatest and more well known ones.

Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS, is a mix of the Naziploitation and sexploitation. It is one of many movies to feature the horror of Nazi experiments mixed with copious nudity, violence and sex, but it is one of the best.

I think this is the only scene not to contain somebody naked.

So what makes Ilsa one of the best? Why it is Ilsa herself, were many other exploitation movies fail is the plot, just throwing in mindless violence, and sex and whatever else is there gimmick. Ilsa however gives us a plot, however simple and shaky it may be. Ilsa, believes that women can withstand more pain than men and would therefore make better soldiers. As the "Heir Doctor" (no idea how that is spelled, but just pronounce it with a German accent) of a Nazi prison camp, she experiments on the women in horrid ways to prove her scientific hypothesis. With this story the movie is perfectly set up to feature the numerous ghastly scenes of experiments, torture and death that an exploitation movie wants.

The sexploitation half of the movie is filled both by the fact that someone cut wardrobes budget to a couple of raggedy pillowcases, which meant that almost every female cast member is walking around topless at some point. But for the women watching, we do get to see a few male asses, throughout, as to incorporate all of the sex, Ilsa is also conducting some side experiments. Every night Ilsa takes one of the male prisoners to bed, and when he fails to satisfy her, he is killed.

Translation: Would you run to the store Honey? We're out of milk.

So at this point you might be thinking, what a disturbing, cheap movie that seems to be made up of nothing but violence and nudity. I would argue that Ilsa is a much deeper movie than most of those cookie cutters action blockbusters that come out these days. As for being an exploitation movie, well nowadays, a movie such as Saw can become a mainstream seven movie franchise. So while Ilsa may seem to some on the verge of being a disturbing pornographic film, it only reflects society and popular culture at the time. Ilsa uses the sadism and hypersexuality that was very real among the Nazis and the atrocities that happened in the camps to create a twisted version of the common fantasy.

Nowadays however, Ilsa is quite the tame movie. Special effects could only do so much in the 70's and since then many much more disturbing films and images have been projected on the theatre screen. One of the most interesting things one recognizes when watching Ilsa, is that the set is in fact, the set of Hogan's Heroes. After the show was canceled the producers allowed for Ilsa to be filmed their, as in the end when it is burned down it would save them demolition costs.

You can recognize the set here, as well as watch this sneaky man dodge the searchlight. Rather sneaky isn't he?

The exploits of Ilsa however do not stop at being a Nazi. There are two official sequels as well as a third. While they are all exploitation movies, they all take on rather different styles, making each one different from the other. As for who would I recommend Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS to? Well, I would say by today's standards the films shocking content is not as extreme as it once was. It is still however the She Wolf of exploitation movies and you should now what you are getting into. However, I much enjoyed Ilsa, for both its funny concept as well as its more serious cinematic importance of pushing the boundaries.

Link:
Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS IMDB