Nazi exploitation (also Nazisploitation) is a subgenre of exploitation film and sexploitation film that involves villainous Nazis committing criminal acts of a sexual nature, often as camp or prison overseers in World War II settings. Most follow the standard women-in-prison formula, only relocated to a concentration camp, death camp or a Nazi brothel, with an added emphasis on sadism, gore, and degradation. The most infamous and influential title (and the one that set the standards of the genre) is perhaps Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1974), a Canadian production. Its surprise success and sequels led European film-makers, mostly in Italy, to produce dozens of similar films depicting Nazi atrocities. While the Ilsa series were profitable, the other films were mostly box-office flops and the genre all but vanished by the mid-1980s.
In Italy, these films are known as part of the "il sadiconazista" cycle which is largely inspired by such art-house films as Liliana Cavani's The Night Porter (1974) and Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salò (1975). Prominent directors of the genre include Paolo Solvay (La Bestia in Calore, aka The Beast in Heat, SS Hell Camp), Cesare Canevari (L'ultima orgia del III Reich, aka Last Orgy of the Third Reich), and Alain Payet (Train spécial pour SS, aka Hitler's Lust Train, Love Train for The SS), all from 1977.
Read more about Nazi Exploitation: History, Themes, Legal Status in Britain, Israeli Literature
Famous quotes containing the words nazi and/or exploitation:
“What is most original in a man’s nature is often that which is most desperate. Thus new systems are forced on the world by men who simply cannot bear the pain of living with what is. Creators care nothing for their systems except that they be unique. If Hitler had been born in Nazi Germany he wouldn’t have been content to enjoy the atmosphere.”
—Leonard Cohen (b. 1934)
“The only phenomenon with which writing has always been concomitant is the creation of cities and empires, that is the integration of large numbers of individuals into a political system, and their grading into castes or classes.... It seems to have favored the exploitation of human beings rather than their enlightenment.”
—Claude Lévi-Strauss (b. 1908)