Woodyanders Review of Women's Camp 119

Women's Camp 119 (1977)

A nice'n'slimy serving of nasty Italian Nazisploitation sleaze

[8/10 · 25 August 2008]

Compassionate Maria Black (well played by the lovely Lorraine De Salle) is forced to work as a medical assistant at a Nazi concentration camp and witnesses firsthand the various brutal and inhumane scientific experiments being conducted by the Third Reich at the place. Director/co-writer Bruno Mattei delivers the lowdown harsh, grimy and appalling goods in an unflinchingly graphic and upsetting manner: Among the foul stuff to relish herein are naked women being severely whipped, a lady have her uterus surgically removed so it can be transplanted in a sterile woman, ladies being put to death in a gas chamber, a frozen guy getting revived by the sexual body heat of a hot nude prostitute (he of course then makes love to said hooker!), an unsuccessful attempt at curing gay men of their homosexuality, one poor gal slowly dying after being shot with a poisoned bullet, and several vile rapes. Moreover, we also get some lesbianism, a catfight, and plenty of full frontal female nudity. The despicable Nazi swine villains make for a memorably hateful rogues' gallery: Ivano Staccioli as the cruel, unhinged Commander Wieker, Ria De Simone as the predatory chief capo Marta, Giovanni Attanasio as the bald, cackling, depraved cretin Kurt, and Gabriele Carrara as the sadistic Oberleutnant Otto Ohlendorff. Sonia Viviani contributes a solid supporting performance as fetching and fragile female prisoner Cristina. Alessandro Alessandroni's moody, shivery score, the grim, humorless tone, Luigi Ciccarese's slick, yet grotty and washed-out cinematography, and the uncompromisingly downbeat bummer ending all further enhance the unsparingly bleak and depressing atmosphere of this perfectly ugly and offensive piece of deplorable trash.