Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS

Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS is a surprisingly well-made film, given its garish title and unabashed exploitative intent. For all the gore, nudity, and laughter inducing dialogue, the film features good camera work, quality special effects, and a quick moving plot. It follows the travails of an American soldier sent to a Nazi medical camp run by Ilsa, who is obsessed with proving women's superior capacity to handle pain so that she can go to the front lines.

Ilsa represents Nazispoitation at its finest. Throwing the history book out the window, the film gives us a Nazi concentration camp populated by topless female guards and open lesbians. Just for fun, it adds gory experiments which all seem to require attractive nude women. Is it tasteless? Lords yes! But it's also fun.

What takes this a notch above other exploitation films is that genuine talent was involved. Ilsa has quality cinematography and surprisingly good special effects. (This may be because, as director Don Edmonds points out, many of the people involved were mainstream filmmakers working under pseudonyms for a quick buck.) Although no one would mistake it for Oscar material, Ilsa is a worthwhile film for all exploitation fans.