9. Nazis
Yes it is sick and unwholesome, but the Italian Nazi film industry deserves its own entry for those of us who like a slice of depravity with our Italian films. The cycle of Italian Nasty Nazi movie was to last for a very short period in the 1970s. It has its roots in films such as The Night Porter by Liliana Cavani and Salon Kitty by Tinto Brass. The former dealt with a sadomasochistic relationship between a camp guard and an inmate. The latter deals with a Nazi brothel. Italian film makers were quick to jump on the bandwagon (as usual) and produce their own Nasty Nazi movies. A whirlwind of films was created which raised from the very depraved (The Gestapo's Last Orgy) to the very silly (SS Experiment Camp) and a number of films that were in between (SS Girls, The Beast in Heat, Deported Women of the SS Special Section, Red Nights of the Gestapo). Probably three Nazi films are worth talking about. The Gestapo's Last Orgy is the most blatant Italian Nasty Nazi film to rip off the Night Porter. It features a girl called Lise Cohen who won't speak or cry when experiments are performed on her in the camp because she believes that she caused the death of her family and must therefore die. A camp commander becomes obsessed with breaking her spirit. When Lise learns from the doctor that she was not responsible for what happened to her family, she embraces life and rolls around the bed for what seems like eternity with the doctor in a very embarrassing sex scene. Lise plunges into an affair with the camp commander and even wears underwear made out of scalped inmates hair. In the end the camp is liberated. Lise and her lover meet up for one last tryst... Totally disgusting in every way, The Gestapo's Last Orgy features 'Jewish baby stew' and a woman flambeed in Brandy and then eaten. Slightly less offensive but rather nutty is The Beast in Heat. The titular beast is a very violent man who is apparently going to save Nazi Germany from defeat. He feasts on young, nubile girls - raping and then killing them. There is also some nonsense about resistance fighters which has been spliced from another film. But it's okay, because at the end, the glacial female SS guard who created the beast, is thrown into the cage for a taste of her own medicine. A very silly film that passed hands for incredible amounts of money in the UK during the Video Nasty era. Even sillier is SS Experiment Camp in which a Commander of the Reich has bought together young women and the best soldiers in Germany for a series of sex experiments so he can ascertain who the most potent man is and then steal his balls. The reason he needs to do this is because he is ball-less himself, having had his nut sack ripped off while raping and pillaging in Poland. So naturally he has a testicle implant from the best soldier who, when he realises his knackers are gone shouts out "WHERE ARE MY BALLS YOU BASTARDS!". This all ends in a fight in which everyone dies. Yes they are unsavoury, but Italian Nasty Nazi movies are out there so we just have to make of them what we will.