Italy, 1977
86m
35mm film, Eastmancolor
mono, Italian
Reviewed at The EOFFTV Review
An Italian horror film directed by Luigi Batzella using the name Ivan Katansky. It was one of a series of unrelated films which caused controversy by using World War II Nazi death camps as settings for lurid exploitation stories. Made a year after the most famous of these “Naziploitation” films, Sergio Garrone’s Lager SSadis kastrat kommandantur (1976), the plot is reminiscent of that for Don Edmonds’ Ilsa She Wolf of the SS (1974). Utilising much stock footage from director Luigi Batzella’s earlier war film Quand suona la campana (1970), it’s one of the cheapest examples of an already threadbare sub-genre.
Plot Summary
A beautiful but thoroughly evil female SS scientist creates a mutant beast man which she keeps locked in a cage. She uses the beast to sexually assault female prisoners while trying to find the whereabouts of a local partisan group.
Credits
* = uncredited
Crew
Director: Ivan Katansky [Luigi Batzella]
Sonora Films, Clemente Roberto P. Moreno present.Produced for Eterna Films
Production Manager: Ciro Papa [Xiro Papas]
Script: Luigi Batzella *
Dialogue: Lorenzo Artale *
Director of Photography: Ugo Brunelli
Editor: Luigi Batzella *
Music: Giuliano Sorgini *
Cast
John Brawn [Gino Turini] (Drago)
Kim Gatti (Captain Adolf Herlinghauser)
Sal Boris [real name: Salvatore Baccaro] (The Beast)
Macha Magall (Dr Helen Krash)
Brigitte Skay [Dorina] *
Xiros Papas [Corvo] *
Alfredo Rizzo [Moreno] *
Andrea Fantasia [doctor] *
Alternative Titles
The Beast in Heat – UK
La bestia en calor – Spain
Djaevelen fra Gestapo – Denmark
Holocauste Nazi (Armes secrètes du III Reich) – France
Horrifying Experiments of the SS Last Days – USA
Quand explose la dernière grenade – France
SS Experiment Part 2 – USA
SS Hell Camp – USA
References
Books
- Euro Gothic: Classics of Continental Horror Cinema by Jonathan Rigby p.381
- Horror and Science Fiction Films IV by Donald C. Willis p.431
- The Seduction of the Gullible (2nd edition) – by John Martin p.17 – credits, synopsis, review
- Spaghetti Nightmares: Italian Fantasy-Horrors as Seen Through the Eyes of Their Protagonists by Luca M. Palmerini and Gaetano Mistretta p.163 – credits
