Directed By: R. Lee Frost
Cast: Bob Cresse, Maria Lease, Kathy Williams, Bruce Kimball, John Alberman, David Friedman
Something Weird Video / DVD-R (For those not in the know, SWV has digital copies of their entire catalog and burns their own DVD-Rs for each individual order; the “special edition” ones you can find in stores are actually released through Image Entertainment) / 1.33:1 fullscreen / English Mono / 96 Minutes
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Love Camp 7 was the first nazisploitation movie ever made, goose stepping its way on to the silver screen in 1969, at least half a decade before more notable titles like Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS and its Italian counterparts reared their Stahlhelm adorned heads. The story primarily follows two women (Maria Lease and Kathy Williams) who are recruited from the Women’s Army Corps by a joint Allied council to be sent into Nazi Germany to track down a female, Jewish scientist in order to get vital information from her before it falls into Nazi hands.
Unfortunately for the two women, but fortunately for us viewers, said scientist is being held in Love Camp 7—a Nazi recreational camp where the prisoners are forced to fulfill every desire of the visiting Nazi officers. A planned arrest lands these two patriots behind the walls of Love Camp 7 where they begin screwing their way to their objective, facing all sorts of depravity along with way. The story ends in an orgy of sex, violence, and some of the most unattractive lingerie ever and features some badass gunshot effects and some hilarious acting from a wounded Nazi officer.
I found the story of Love Camp 7 to be a bit more engaging than the stories of other nazisploitation movies (I feel dumb for even writing that) but where this movie truly soared above its successors was in the sex department. While most nazisploitation movies use their stories as an excuse to parade naked girls in front of the camera and have them terribly act out the effects of poorly executed torture and simulated sex, Love Camp 7 did not hold back. This movie not only packs in the nudity and simulated sex, but also brings in some acts that would make the most hardened “roughie” directors blush.
“Thank you sir, may I have another!”
As is standard for nazisploitation movies there is a shower/hosing down scene followed by a medical inspection; some camera angles during the inspection scene lead me to believe the butch nurse may have actually gone knuckles deep into some of the prisoners. One delinquent occupant gets the pleasure of sitting on “the seat of honor”—two pieces of plywood angled to an edge—which she is held on with ropes, only to be pushed harder down onto it when she continues not to cooperate. One of the lovely undercover gals gets strapped up and actually whipped. I mean really whipped. You can see her ass bruising and welting up as it goes on. Once you see this movie, you’ll understand why it was one of the original “video nasties.”
Movies such as Pasolini’s Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom, Luchino Visconti’s The Damned, and Bertolucci’s The Conformist take the extreme political ideologies of the World War II era and associates them with sexual perversion in order to try to create a more accessible understanding of why people chose to support the given parties. R. Lee Frost merely used the Nazi Party as a vehicle to show some depraved sexual acts and damn if he didn’t do it well.
Since this was a DVD-R straight from the fine folks at Something Weird Video, there were some hidden gems tacked on after the credits. There was a trailer for Mario Caiano’s Nazi Love Camp 27, complete with pre-trailer warning that it had been cut and some blacked-out scenes; a trailer for the exploitation extravaganza A Scream in the Streets; a Something Weird Video promotion bit that played over scenes from some of their films (not the “World Famous Opener” that plays before most of their films); a LSD induced, psychedelic rock jam sessions completely with people dancing, tripping balls, and more light effects than an ELO concert; another SWV promotion clip that looked like it was straight from a 1990s VHS; and the whole shebang ended with a different acid induced jam session that was intercut with magazine ads.
All-in-all, Love Camp 7 was a solid movie and is a must have of any exploitation collector. The few extras at the end of the film were a truly pleasant surprise and proof that the folks at Something Weird Video are truly the best when it comes to all things weird in film.
