Beasts in Human Skin: Ilsa: She Wolf of the S.S.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Ilsa: She Wolf of the S.S.

Also Known As

Ilsa - Die Hündinnen vom Liebeslager 7 (Germany)

Main Details

Released in 1974
Color
Runtime: 92 min | 96 min
Aspect Ratio: (1.66:1)
Production Co: Aeteas Filmproduktions
Distribution Co: Cambist Films (1975) (USA) (theatrical) | Cinépix Film Properties (CFP) (1975) (Canada) (theatrical)

Cast and Crew

Directed by Don Edmonds
Written by Jonah Royston, John C.W. Saxton (as Jonah Royston)
Starring: Dyanne Thorne, Gregory Knoph, Tony Mumolo, Maria Marx, Nicolle Riddell, Jo Jo Deville, Sandy Richman, George 'Buck' Flower (as C.D. Lafleuer), Rodina Keeler, Richard Kennedy (as Wolfgang Roehm), Lance Marshall, David F. Friedman, John F. Goff, Wayne Beauchamp, Colleen Brennan, Sandy Dempsey, Uschi Digard, Peggy Sipots, Donna Young
Produced by David F. Friedman (as Herman Traeger)
Cinematography by Glenn Roland
Film Editing by Kurt Schni

This is what people think of when they think of grindhouse cinema. Movies like Knightriders or Our Man Flint don't seem to belong in the same genre as films like this. People tend to regard grindhouse films as poorly acted and plotless vehicles designed only to show gratuitous sex and violence on the silver screen. That's essentially what Ilsa: She Wolf of the S.S. is. It's 96 minutes of exposed flesh and sexual violence - a sexploitation film gussied up in Nazi garb.

While this is considered a grindhouse classic because it epitomizes the lowest of the low of the genre, I'm not a raving fan. Perhaps I have just become desensitized over the years or I've seen too many films which try to shock the audience through graphic depictions of violence and torture, but I found Ilsa to be boring. The only time it ceased to be boring was near the end where the action sequence was so poorly done that it became comical... which was a pleasant change from the tedium of the rest of the film. Yes, there is nudity. In fact, there is so much nudity that it was difficult to find screenshots that didn't have naked women in them.

Now for the story. Ilsa is a middle aged buxom blonde scientist who is looking for love in all the wrong places. She's also the Nazi warden of a death camp. Both men and women are housed at this camp but used for different purposes. Ilsa sleeps with the men of her choosing and then when they fail to satisfy her sexual needs, she has them castrated. The women who are not given to the Nazi troops as sex slaves are used as guinea pigs for Ilsa's dialobical and pointless experiments. She has a theory that women can endure more pain than men and would therefore make better troops.

Yep, that's the plot. Understandably, the prisoners don't like their housing arrangements and try to escape. If you're brave enough, you can watch the movie to see if they succeed. Please don't think I hate this film. It is indeed a grindhouse classic and worth watching, but just don't expect it to be anything more than grindhouse sex and violence.