Gestapo's Last Orgy (1978)

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Sadistic and merciless concentration camp Commandant Conrad von Starker (splendidly played with venomous aplomb by Adriano Micantoni) runs his camp as a brothel for Nazi soldiers seeking rest and pleasure from combat. Starker becomes determined to break the fierce iron will of beautiful blonde Jewish prisoner Lise Cohen (an excellent performance by the lovely Daniela Poggi). Many years later Starker and Lise get back together at the crumbling remains of the camp for a decidedly less than happy reunion. Director Cesare Canevari, who also co-wrote the twisted and depraved script with Antonio Lucarella, ably creates an appropriately grim and depressing all-hope-is-lost atmosphere while relating the sordidly engrossing story at a steady pace and further jazzing things up with occasional snazzy freeze frames and stylized use of strenuous slow motion. Moreover, Canevari presents several inspired moments of shockingly harsh and unflinching brutality: the guests at a lavish banquet gleefully eat an unborn fetus, these same sickos drench a passed out lady with booze, set her body on fire, and devour her charred remains (!), another luckless lass gets fed to a pack of ferocious dogs, and a poor gal is dunked into a deadly pit of caustic lime soda. The fact that these mean-spirited set pieces are done in a completely serious manner makes them that much more disturbing and upsetting. Of course, there's also a handy helping of steamy soft-core sex and a plethora of tasty female nudity (some guys show us their stuff as well). Why, we even get a potent and provocative central message about the ruthless and desperate things people will do to stay alive and survive in a bleak situation. Micantoni and Poggi do sterling work in the lead roles while Maristella Greco contributes a memorably chilling portrayal of Starker's vicious assistant Alma. Claudio Catozzo's glossy cinematography gives the picture an impressively slick look. Alberto Baldan Bembo's moody'n'melodic score likewise does the trick. The hauntingly downbeat tragic ending packs a wicked punch. Highly recommended for fans of this controversial and much-maligned exploitation sub-genre.

This is the fifth Nazisploitation film that I've watched after the arty THE DAMNED (1969) and THE NIGHT PORTER (1974), and the more exploitative NAZI LOVE CAMP 27 (1977) and THE RED NIGHTS OF THE GESTAPO (1977); it's reputed as the most infamous of the lot, but I was disappointed to discover that the version I ended up with was shorn of about 10 minutes of "sick footage" (which, reportedly, includes a woman being burned alive and a cannibalistic sequence where the prisoners serve as dinner for the Nazis)! That said, what's left in would still alarm and profoundly disturb most conservative viewers.The film opens with an audacious voice-over of a Nazi war-crime trial as a man (later revealed to have been the Commandant of a concentration camp-cum-makeshift brothel for German soldiers returning from the front!) is making his way by car to a rendezvous with his lover (a Jewish girl he frequently victimized during the war); the meeting place, in fact, is the ruins of the camp itself – thus resembling most closely the central relationship within THE NIGHT PORTER. During the course of the film, we're treated to several instances of inventively depraved physical torture – most memorably, one where the heroine, hanging upside down, is hovered above a slew of hungry rodents and another in which a character is made to slide into a deadly lime pit. Characterization is particularly of interest here (though this element was even more successful in the afore-mentioned NAZI LOVE CAMP 27): the protagonist faces the myriad beatings and constant degradation with utmost stoicism – believing herself responsible for her family's capture, she has no desire to live (she's played by Daniela Poggi – who, years later, would become the conductor of a long-running TV show about the search for real-life missing persons and now, obviously, prefers to totally exclude the picture from her curriculum!); the Commandant is a closet masochist who's frequently willingly dominated by his female (if masculine-looking) warden; the latter, then, is a standard figure in this type of film – though she's curiously absent for much of the mid-section (returning, in fact, merely for her hasty comeuppance).Events constantly switch from the present, as the two lovers wander about the place and then give in to their passion for one another, to the past (including the girl's liberating bed-romp with the sympathetic camp doctor, her eventual ascension to position of the Commandant's favorite – even turning down a plea of help from her former prison companion – and culminating in the 'loss' of her child because it has no place in the Nazi-ruled 'perfect' world of the future); incidentally, the abrupt downbeat ending is predictable virtually from the get-go. Despite featuring a haunting theme, augmented by half-spoken German lyrics, I reiterate that the end product (pompously renamed CALIGULA REINCARNATED AS Hitler in some quarters!) is inferior to NAZI LOVE CAMP 27 – or, for that matter, the director's other work that I've come across. Incidentally, I'll be checking out presently another notorious example of the Nazisploitation genre i.e. Tinto Brass' SALON KITTY (1976)

CALIGULA REINCARNATED AS Hitler is a decent, yet somewhat dull Nazi flick in the same realm as ILSA and all the other copy-cats. Basic story- Lise is taken to a camp where the head Nazi-guy tries to break her will with torture. Lise is a strong-willed young lady and won't be broken so easily. Eventually, Lise realizes she can turn the game on it's head by cooperating and giving the head Nazi-guy what he wants. She finally pretends to fall in love with him so that she can act out her revenge... The main difference between this film and many of the other "Nazisploitation" films is that this one appears to take itself pretty seriously. It doesn't have the "campy" feel of the ILSA flicks and every thing is played straight-faced. I think this adds to the atmosphere of the film, but to be quite honest, there isn't much to this film anyway. The torture scenes are pretty tame and there's a few lame sex scenes. There are a few decent moments. The human-flesh-dinner-scene comes to mind...but overall this film is rather dull and not very shocking. A decent attempt but all-in-all a rather forgettable film. If you are looking for a real shockfest or bloodbath - this isn't it. Obviously CALIGULA REINCARNATED won't be for all tastes due to the subject matter, but for the exploit/horror enthusiasts out there, this one will seem rather bland. A generous 6.5/10

Daniela Levy stars as Lise Cohen, a Jewish woman caught in World War 2 and sent to a concentration camp that doubles as a Nazi brothel for the exhausted soldiers. Commandant Conrad von Starker (Marc Loud) runs the camp with his she wolf wannabe at his side. Starker takes liking of sorts to Lise as she becomes his tortured pet project. Full of the usual nasty things you you would expect from a Naziploitation flick (rape, torture and killings) a few things creep up every now and then that you might not have seen before. One such scene was an interesting dinner scene that served up equal parts corny Nazi propaganda-like dialogue to go with their meal of Jewish baby flesh (nasty). One scene however was quite funny where Starker trying to break Lise suspends her over a fish tank of flesh-eating rats (in reality a whole bunch of friendly gerbils). A mediocre job of filming things with an overuse of slow-motion and slides. As long as you don't expect a masterpiece you will be OK.