Review #208: 'The Beast in Heat' (1977)

Beautiful and sadistic Nazi officer Dr. Kratsch (Macha Magall) has created a horrific mutant beast who she keeps locked in a cage, offering it POW's to rape and feast upon. She aims to use her experiments to eventually win the war, but first must deal with the Italian resistance. After blowing up a bridge that was one of the keys to the Nazi's strategic positioning, the resistance plans to move into action as a few of their army are caught and are being subjected to the brutal experiments.

Also known as SS Hell Camp or, more laughably, Horrifying Experiments of SS Last Days, this is one of many Nazi exploitation movies released in the 70's and 80's (commonly known as 'nazisploitation'), and was only made notorious due to its placement on the Video Nasty list. Otherwise it would have become as forgetful as the likes of Hitler's Lust Train (1977) and SS Girls (1977). Inspired by movies such as Pasolini's Salo, Or The 120 Days Of Sodom (1975) and Cavani's The Night Porter (1974), both European art-house films, the nazisploitation sub-genre commonly consisted of brutal experimentation, degrading masochistic sexual acts, dominatrix female wardens, and generally being very, very shit. The Beast in Heat does not disappoint in this department, although it is one of the few to truly live up to its 'nasty' title.

Not to say the film is effective in any way, but sitting through torture scenes such as a woman having electric shocks applied to her vagina, someone having their insides eaten by guinea-pigs, and a woman being raped by the 'Beast' who rips off chunks of her pubic hair and eats it, is rather unpleasant. This is repulsive film-making at its most desperate. It is so devoid of ideas or artistic flair that it must try to amp up the shock factor to the max to render itself memorable. The beast itself is actually just a pretty ugly guy with big lips, a stunted stature, and a boil on his arse. It's a film full of memorably awful moments, and it's unnerving to see a director so blasé about his work that he would allow a panning shot that clearly shows the shadows of himself, the camera and half his crew to remain in the film. Almost as bad as the Nazi party itself.


Directed by: Luigi Batzella
Starring: Macha Magall, Gino Turini, Edilio Kim
Country: Italy

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie