"OK YOU BASTARD WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY BALLS."
A hell of a line of dialogue shouted near the end of the laughably bad SS Experiment Camp, the 36th of the 39 films prosecuted for obscenity by the Director Of Public prosecutions during the Video Nasty scare of the early 80's in the UK.
The 4th nazisploitation film on the list is easily the tamest of the lot, mostly shorn of the horrible sexual abuse and violence that the others (Beast In Heat, Gestapo's Last Orgy and Love Camp 7) reveled in. It's the story of a prisoner of war camp ran by a doctor who's interested in creating the ultimate master race (yep) and to do so he's pairing off his fittest, healthiest prison guards with his fittest, healthiest prisoners. But his real plan is to find out who the most virile guard is so he can steal their testicles to replace his own that he lost when a prisoner bit them off. Yep. Said ball-less guard somehow doesn't realise what's happened to him (yep) until he tries to sleep with a prisoner who's fallen in love with him (yep) and it causes him to snap, getting revenge on the system that ruined him.
It sounds bad doesn't it. The reality is worse. It's awful stuff, not a jot of it makes sense. The experiments of the title consist of blowing air into a woman's ear until she dies and making other people have sex in a tank of water for no reason other than it's an interesting visual. The acting is atrocious with some actors visibly stifling laughter in numerous scenes. Why was this film made? There's no real reason for this film to exist other than it's abundant nudity. Ah yes, I've just answered my own question there. SS Experiment Camp hit screens when everyone involved had giving up even trying, when 2 and 3 films were being shot at the same time because the sets and extras were simply available. Riding on the coat tails of the notorious Ilsa films and Tinto's Brass's outrageous Salon Kitty it was never going to live up to them and wasn't even going to try. One scene though....one scene and it's appearance outside of the film caused an awful lot of fuss.
A female prisoner snaps and stabs a guard and as a result is gunned down and tied upside down to a post and left to die. It's a haunting, gruesome visual soundtracked by her dying whimpers. Someone out there thought it would be a good idea to use it for the film's poster and VHS artwork cover and the howls of offended outrage began. This, along with the garish artwork for The Driller Killer and Cannibal Holocaust were the catalyst for the Video Nasty scandal and moral crusader Mary Whitehouse was leading the way despite claiming to have watched none of the films. If she'd watched SS Experiment Camp she'd have just laughed but politicians and tabloids were having a field day causing a media feeding frenzy. Absolute trash like this became infamous instead of fading away like it should have.
SS Experiment Camp was prosecuted and banned in July of 1983. 23 years later it rolled into the BBFC again and to no one's surprise was released totally uncut. Certain aspects of the media had another moan but this time it all came to naught. The BBFC's justification for an uncut release said it all -
"The content of the film is in fact very mild and poorly executed. If anything, it was the title of the film and its original packaging that led to difficulties, rather than the content. The idea of the film may, of course, be offensive to some but that is not a good enough reason to cut or reject it. We would only cut or reject a film for adults if the content was illegal or harmful. SS Experiment Camp is neither illegal or harmful, just tasteless."
Tasteless. There's no denying it's that but the idea of banning a film because it was offensive it preposterous.
Did it deserve to be on the Nasties list? Not a hope.
Is it worth a watch? Get the fuck out of here. But if you do decide to watch it at least get the bells and whistles version available on bluray. The fact that is got a blu release is astounding but that's the power of the words "Video Nasty". Release it and cult film fans will come running.
Next up - Tenebrae. An honest to god Giallo masterpiece from Dario Argento.
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