SS Experiment Camp was one of the films to kick-start the video nasty furor in the UK. As a result, for the past 25 years or so, it has been considered a notorious film. However, like The Driller Killer, it primarily attained it's infamous status due to the crude cover art used on it's video box. Those people who actually watched the film discovered that it was nowhere near as shocking as it's reputation suggested. Furthermore, it is actually unintentionally hilarious on a number of occasions. SS Experiment Camp is a bit of an enigma.
The story involves a group of women who are delivered to the aforementioned SS Experiment Camp. While there they are subjected to some inexplicable experiments, which often seem to involve forced copulation with a group of Nazi studs (who it has to be said all look strangely Italian). The purpose of the experiments is to find the best stud from this Aryan select and transfer his balls onto the camp commandant who, as we discover, lost his when a Russian woman he was raping bit his off.
Now, the above synopsis may well make the film sound deeply depraved and offensive. Well, it is sleazy and in highly dubious taste but the execution of the film is so amateurish and unrealistic that it really sounds a lot worse than it actually is. The depiction of the camp is more Butlins than Belsen at times. The inmates seem relatively unconcerned for the most part and the Nazi baddies are often hilariously unconvincing. That said, there are some nasty moments, particularly the treatment meted out to the young girl at the orgy; she ends up hanging naked upside down in a shot that recalls the aforementioned distasteful cover shot. But, generally speaking, sequences that achieve such offense are uncommon here. The scenes showing the experiments, while certainly tasteless, are often more strange than anything else. The copulation in a tank of water idea being an example where it is too bizarre to take altogether seriously.
The film does, however, have two uproariously funny sequences. In neither case is the humour intentional...
Funny scene #1: In the first scene we have one of the Nazi studs returning to the dorm and saying how much he is looking forward to banging some hot women in the next experiment. The good Nazi, Helmut, takes offense at this and says, "I think every time you open your mouth you talk sh*t", to which the bad Nazi replies, after a long pregnant pause, "Hey, I don't like that last remark you made....about sh*t". Cue a silly fight.
Funny scene #2: The second hilarious scene begins when Helmut discovers, just as he is about to have sex, that he has no balls. He then runs naked through the camp in search of the commandant. Once he finally confronts him, he delivers the truly immortal line, "OK you bastard...what have you done to my balls?".
Both of the above scenes make the film worth enduring in a comedy sense.
It's very sleazy. There's acres of full-frontal naked female flesh. It's occasionally gratuitously violent. But above all, the notorious SS Experiment Camp is, in the final analysis, a rather silly film.
