SS Experiment Love Camp

SS Experiment Love Camp (1976)

You know I never knew how many of these Nazi themed exploitation movies that were actually made. For some reason I’ve decided that I need to watch them all, just to see what the big deal is. But if they are all as unpleasant and mean spirited as this one I may change my mind. SS Experiment Love Camp tells the story of a camp set up to experiment on female political prisoners. The best of the women (basically whoever survives the torture) are chosen to participate in a breeding program with the finest soldiers that Germany has to offer. Additionally there is a subplot involving some research that the head of the camp wants conducted for his own purposes. Without spoiling anything I will say that the subplot is far more entertaining than the rest of the movie.

SS Experiment Love Camp is a straightforward exploitation movie that follows the set formula of getting a lot of women naked and doing bad things to them. There is also a love story between one of the German soldiers and a female “volunteer” of the program that is unlikely and twisted. This subplot provides most of the entertainment value that the movie has to offer and provides the ending for the movie. SS Experiment Love Camp starts off quickly, but loses steam and gets terribly slow before wrapping itself up with a crazy and twisted ending. I’m also not sure if it was the low budget or the script, but all of the performances are way over the top. This isn’t helped by the terrible job done dubbing the actors dialogue. Overall this isn’t a well-acted or written movie in addition to committing the cardinal sin of being slow and boring.

There are low budget movies and then there are no budget movies. This one clearly was made with very little money. There are scenes with medical “equipment” made from plywood, to labs filled with empty space. Throw in the fact that the filmmakers couldn’t even find 5 sets of matching German uniforms and it is obvious that it was made on the cheap. Still the movie looks pretty good, so the director and cameraman knew what they were doing. They also show several surgeries that look good and were probably done with the leftovers from a local butchers shop. So technically I’d have to say that is a well-put together movie. Now if they had had a story that was able to fill up the hour and a half runtime.

I was really disappointed in this movie. For about an hour not much happens and it was really difficult to stay interested in what was happening on screen. But at the same time the movie is technically sound, has good effects with an old school feel, and is a blast during the last fifteen minutes. Still overall this is a mediocre film that I can’t really recommend that anyone seek out.

2 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer