Nazi Exploitation - Legal Status in Britain

Legal Status in Britain

Sometime in the early 1980s, Nazi exploitation films made their way onto the British market, made popular by the growing VHS home video technology. With major Hollywood studios steering clear of the new format, it was left to small, domestic companies to populate the shelves with tapes. A small company from England, GO Video, purchased the rights to an Italian film named SS Experiment Camp. The company ran a marketing campaign with full-page ads showing a naked woman hanging from her feet, a swastika dangling from her wrist and an SS commander looming in the background. Advertisements for the film in video rental stores became a target for protestors, who picketed such stores and petitioned for the film to be banned. After the Video Recordings Act, most of the Nazi exploitation films (labelled 'Nazi Nasties') became illegal in the UK. The following Nazi exploitation films were banned:

• SS Experiment Camp (SS Experiment/Lager SSadis Kastrat Kommandantur)
• The Beast In Heat (SS Hell Camp/La Bestia in Calore)
• Gestapo's Last Orgy (Last Orgy of The Third Reich/Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler/L'ultima orgia del III Reich)
• Love Camp 7
• Deported Women of the SS Special Section (Le Deportate della sezione speciale SS)

Of the above films, only SS Experiment Camp is now available in the UK.