With the holiday’s fast approaching at the time of this writing, I’m sure there is nothing that brings more cheer than
Cesare Canevari’s 1977 exercise in poor taste; The Gestapo’s Last Orgy… and by “cheer” I mean images you’ll need to scrub your eyeballs with a wire brush to unsee…
Lise (Daniela Poggi) returns to the place of her internment after the close of world War II, and begins to relive her terrifying misadventures in a concentration camp utilized as a bordello by the most Italian German officers you are ever likely to lay eerie eyeballs upon.
So what sorts of monstrous memories are revisited by our heroine? Well, after a cold, sterile gyno exam, the pick of the prisoners are given to the horny as hell ranks where the soldiers are more than ready to do the deed after watching a preposterous series of slides (featuring a muscle bound Hitler having anal with a woman eating a bucket of meat, a scene of shit play that will have you screaming “melted milk chocolate”, and more!)… all supervised by Commandant Conrad von Starke (Adriano Micantoni).
Anyway in the face of that debauchery, Lise stands resolute… but she’ll have more than the Commandant to contend with, as the camp is co-run by the sadistic Alma (Maristella Greco), a female SS who loves watching her pet Doberman’s eat ladies on their periods (these dogs couldn’t be less into it… so expect bored animals assing around while dramatic music blares from the speakers and fast edits ensue).
Lise maintains her poker face throughout, but will her resolve last as the atrocity scale goes off the fucking charts?
Look man, I’m not going to tell you that The Gestapo’s Last Orgy is some artful masterpiece designed to withstand the test of the ages, because that would be some true bullshit. But, what it does well, it excels at… specifically trying to shock and sicken it’s audience.
Once the grindhouse caught a glimpse of Naziploitation it seemed all common sense in regards to what should be shown to an audience was obliterated. Here were real life villains that performed horrors undreamed, so why not give them carte blanch to be evil as fuck on the big screen… and since they are so hated, any crime they commit seems reasonable and acceptable in the confines of the silver screen… and that mother fucker Caneveri really took that to new heights in this putrid picture!
Along with the craziness mentioned up yonder, ol’ C-dawg (along with Antonio Lucarella) presents sequences of our protagonists waxing philosophical before eating human stew and cooking snaked woman alive (sounds horrible… and it is, in theory… but believe me, everything in this film is so over-the-top that is becomes as cartoony as it is sadistic), a person being skinned so that his tatoo can be displayed in a picture frame for all eternity, women being kicked down a slide into a vat of acid (some of them look bored as fuck too), and of course, vomiting on rats.
To enhance all of the above, 88 Films have provided a nice selection of special features on this Blu-ray release which begins with two audio commentaries (one featuring genre film experts Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thomson, and the other courtesy of critic and author Samm Deighan… both absolutely excellent listens) that examine the film’s production, and it’s legacy… as well as it’s place in the Nazipolitation genre.
Following that we get the film’s alternate Italian ending, and interviews with Four Flies Records CEO Pierpaolo De Sanctis (discussing the film’s composer Alberto Baldan Bembo ) as well as Starcrash director Luigi Cozzi (who knew Caneveri), and the film’s English trailer.
This all begs the question, would it be easier to swallow this if it wasn’t surrounded by the echo of real-life tragedy?
Well, it wouldn’t be as icky, but as it stands this is an off-the-wall torture porn experience that… you know what, fuck that… this is the type of film that seemingly wants you use your own vomit as lube as it attempts to turn you on with it’s crass blend of gore and tits. It’s a combo that isn’t for the weak of heart, but if you want to challenge yourself to one of the darkest corners of the grindhouse genre this will likely killscreen your brain… but somehow I think you lascivious lot would welcome that experience…
