Nazi exploitation

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Nazi exploitation (also Nazisploitation) is a subgenre of exploitation film and sexploitation film that involves Nazis committing sex crimes, often as camp or prison overseers during World War II. Most follow the women in prison formula, only relocated to a concentration camp, extermination camp, or Nazi brothel, and with an added emphasis on sadism, gore, and degradation. The most infamous and influential title (which set the standards of the genre) is a Canadian production, Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1974). Its surprise success and that of Salon Kitty and The Night Porter led European filmmakers, mostly in Italy, to produce similar films, with just over a dozen being released over the next few years. Globally exported to both cinema and VHS, the films were critically attacked and heavily censored, and the sub-genre all but vanished by the end of the seventies.

In Italy, these films are known as part of the "il sadiconazista" cycle, which were inspired by such art-house films as Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975), and Tinto Brass's Salon Kitty (1976).^[1] Prominent directors of the genre include Paolo Solvay (La Bestia in Calore, also known as The Beast in Heat and SS Hell Camp), Cesare Canevari (Last Orgy of the Third Reich, also known as L'ultima orgia del III Reich, Gestapo's Last Orgy and Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler), and Alain Payet (Train spécial pour SS, also known as Special Train for Hitler and Helltrain), all from 1977.