SS Experiment Love Camp 4K UHD

88 Films

4K UHD Release: November 4, 2025

Video: 1.85:1/2160p (HDR10/Dolby Vision)/Color

Audio: English and Italian LPCM 2.0 mono

Subtitles: English, English SDH

Run Time: 94:55

Director: Sergio Garrone

Note: Because there is so much overlap between all Italian Nazisploitation films, I’ve recycled a lot of my review of Cesare Canevari’s The Gestapo’s Last Orgy here.

At the tail-end of World War II, the sadistic and evil Colonel von Kleiben (Giorgio Cerioni) and his SS associates attempt to create a perfect Aryan race by performing deranged experiments on innocent prisoners of war. (From 88 Films’ official synopsis)

Few things are as patently offensive as the Third Reich and the concentration camps that Hitler’s goons concocted in order to systematically murder millions of people. As such, it’s not surprising that there is a substantial exploitation subgenre devoted to these historical atrocities. Nazisploitation sprung from reputable movies, like Luchino Visconti’s The Damned (1969) and Liliana Cavani’s The Night Porter (1974), and less reputable S&M softcore and roughies, such as Joseph P. Mawra’s Olga 1964 trilogy – Olga’s Girls, White Slaves of Chinatown, and Olga’s House of Shame – as well as a growing contingent of WIP (women in prison) movies. North American filmmakers jumped onto the bandwagon early and stuck largely to the WIP formula, including Lee Frost’s Love Camp 7 (1969) and Don Edmonds’ Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1975), which is probably the most popular and ‘likeable’ genre entry*.

As was often the case, the most distasteful and transgressive Nazisploitation movies were helmed by Italian filmmakers. The repulsive sadiconazista (a portmanteau that basically translates to ‘Nazi sadism’) cavalcade began with Luigi Batzella’s goofball gross-out SS Hell Camp (Italian: La bestia in calore, 1977) and continued with Pier Paolo Pasolini’s allegorical arthouse shocker Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (Italian: Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodom, 1970), Sergio Garrone’s SS Experiment Love Camp (Italian: Lager SSadis Kastrat Kommandantur, 1976), Mario Caiano’s Nazi Love Camp 27 (Italian: La svastica nel ventre, 1977), Tinto Brass’ softcore send-up Salon Kitty (1976); and the arguable ne plus ultra of the movement, Cesare Canevari’s The Gestapo’s Last Orgy (Italian: L'ultima orgia del III Reich, 1977). 

Of these, the most enduring would be Salò, which has been critically reevaluated and currently lives in the Criterion collection, but others remained in the pop culture pantheon, thanks in large part to the UK moral panic known as The Video Nasties. SS Hell Camp, under its alternate The Beast in Heat title, Gestapo’s Last Orgy, Love Camp 7 (again, not an Italian film), and SS Experiment Love Camp all made the final DDP list of banned films. SS Experiment Love Camp has since been released on uncut UK blu-ray (and now 4K), while the others were either not resubmitted to the BBFC or were recently refused a release certificate outright.

That implies that Garrone’s film is the most innocuous of the bunch, but the certification seems completely arbitrary to me. Of the four films, Gestapo’s Last Orgy’s ongoing infamy makes sense, because it is a uniquely unsettling experience, but SS Hell Camp and Love Camp 7 are quite harmless by modern standards, leaving SS Experiment Love Camp the second most objectionable of the bunch. What’s more, the original UK VHS box art, which depicted a topless woman tied to an upside down crucifix, was heavily circulated by the tabloids at the height of the Nasties panic. It was basically the poster child of the event.

But I digress, because SS Experiment Love Camp is also relatively harmless. As indicated by the word ‘love’ in the title, it is by and large a softcore sexploitation picture, like the majority of its WIP counterparts. The cheesecake full-frontal nudity and gyrating trysts are spiked with depictions of some of the Nazi’s more shocking atrocities, but these are shot with little enthusiasm. The most disturbing means of murder – electrocution, lethal injection, hypothermia, and eardrum pressure tests, are either left to our imaginations or a thinly disguised excuse to pull focus on a set of naked breasts. The only real gore is seen during surgery sequences, which are framed as gross, but not violent. The grossest is built on the very silly, very sexploitation idea of transplanting the testicles from a virile into an impotent man and vice versa.

This certainly is a bleak film, though, and the tacky pastiche of corny T&A, apathetic violence, crying women, and droning Nazi rhetoric eventually wiggles its way under the skin. Somehow, the effect is magnified by the impossibly lethargic pace. Of course, my personal sensibilities have been skewed by viewing not only the considerably more bleak Gestapo’s Last Orgy, but also Mou Tun-Fei and Godfrey Ho’s horrendously graphic Unit 731/Maruta movies (Man Behind the Sun [1988] and Laboratory of the Devil [1992]), which are about the similar prison camp experiments that the Japanese ran in China during WWII.

Reluctantly, I must admit that SS Experiment Love Camp ends with a somewhat rousing uprising sequence, in which the prisoners reap bloody revenge against their Nazi captors. These are typical of the genre and a trope shared by standard-issue women in prison movies, but are typically too sluggish to elicit any excitement. Prior to SS Experiment Love Camp, Garrone wrote and occasionally directed spaghetti westerns, and it’s obvious that he’s more comfortable shooting action than smut (he’s no Tinto Brass!) or endless scenes of characters making lewd jokes and monotonously arguing the ethics of the war.

Among Garrone’s westerns were a couple of memorable Anthony Steffen vehicles, No Room to Die (Italian: Una lunga fila di croci, 1969) and Django the Bastard (Italian: Django il bastardo; aka: The Stranger’s Gundown, 1969). Towards the end of his career, he appears to have specialized in shooting movies back to back, utilizing the same sets and casts. Relevant to this review is SS Camp 5: Women's Hell (Italian: SS Lager 5: L'inferno delle donne, 1977), which shares locations, actors, and footage with SS Experiment Love Camp, but prior to that, in 1974, he wrote & directed dual Klaus Kinski thrillers, The Hand That Feeds the Dead (Italian: La mano che nutre la morte) and Lover of the Monster (Italian: Le amanti del mostro).

* Fun fact: both Love Camp 7 and Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS were produced by David F. Friedman, a one-time US Army Signal Corps member who was tasked with shooting footage of Nazi war crimes.

Video

It was banned in the UK, but, here in the US, it was relatively easy to find SS Experiment Love Camp for rent at your local mom & pop video store from Wizard Video under the alternate title SS Experiment. It was part of the company’s legendary big box line and remains a sought after collector’s item (though not as valuable as its UK equivalent). The first stateside DVD was a budget, 1.33:1 disc from Substance, followed by a more substantial (ironic) disc from Media Blasters in 2005. The first and only official Blu-ray was a UK exclusive from 88 Films, who have now put together the first 4K UHD, which they are releasing simultaneously in the US, UK, and Canada. 

This new 1.85:1, 2160p transfer – taken from a 4K remaster of original camera negatives – is very good, honestly much better than the film deserves. I wish more movies I actually enjoyed looked this good. If you’ve seen any of 88 Films’ other Italian cult UHDs, most of which are UK exclusives, you know what to expect. Colors are consistent, as are the fine grain levels, and any inconsistent clarity is easily blamed on the rough ‘n tumble way the film was shot. SS Experiment Love Camp is such a dim and dingy movie that the HDR10/Dolby Vision upgrades aren’t vital, but they do boost the occasional pop of red and help delineate the darkest scenes, which were quite muddy on older DVDs.

Audio

SS Experiment Love Camp is presented with original Italian and English dub options, both in uncompressed LPCM mono. As per usual, these movies were, by-in-large, shot without sound with multinational casts and dubbed in post, so there is no official language option. The two mixes are similar in terms of the limited effects and music, but, in spite of some very unconvincing lip sync, the English track has notably cleaner dialogue.

The synth-based score, by composers Vasili Kojucharov and Roberto Pregadio, is sparingly used, but, again, better than the film deserves, especially the baroque title cue that would better suit a Gothic horror throwback. The theme sounds pretty rich for a mono mix, while the seemingly diegetic party music that plays during orgies is somewhat flat and muffled – all as intended, I assume.

Extras

• Commentary with Eugenio Ercolani and Nanni Cobretti – Ercolani, the author of Darkening the Italian Screen: Interviews with Genre and Exploitation Directors (McFarland, 2019 & 2023), and critic/expert Cobretti dig into the larger history of the Nazisploitation genre, mostly focusing on the Italian sadiconazista subset, shared genre themes and imagery, censorship, and the careers of the cast & crew. 

• SSadistically Yours, Sergio G. (30:24, HD) – Director Sergio Garrone discusses his career as a B-filmmaker, the unsustainable distribution model of the ‘70s and ‘80s, his love of fettuccine (he uses a lot of food metaphors to explain things), shooting SS Experiment Love Camp and SS Camp 5: Women's Hell back-to-back, and working with the cast & crew.

• SSadist SSound (28:26, HD) – Music historian Pierpaolo De Sanctis chats about the careers of composers Vasili Kojucharov and Roberto Pregadio.

• The Alabiso Dynasty (25:52, HD) – Editor Eugenio Alabiso (who didn’t edit SS Experiment Love Camp, but did edit a lot of classic Italian cult films) looks back on his life and career, and those of his siblings: producer Salvatore, editor Daniele, and producer Mario. 

• Framing Exploitation (11:42, HD) – Cinematographer Maurizio Centini closes things out recalling his career, film by film.

• Italian opening and closing titles (2:50)

• English export trailer

The images on this page are taken from the included BD – NOT the new 4K UHD – and sized for the page. Larger versions can be viewed by clicking the images. Note that there will be some JPG compression.