Dyanne Thorne

(In French, On Cable TV, May 2020) One day, I’ll learn not to let curiosity get the better of me. After all, curiosity is almost the only reason to watch Ilsa the Tigress of Siberia after suffering through the first instalments of the exploitation series. I say almost, because of two things: Dyanne Thorne’s sizable assets, and the film’s explicit Canadian content. None of those things are respectable or even justifiable, but at least they offer something more than mindless sequel viewing inertia. Considering that the film was shot in Canada, the Siberian location is a low-budget narrative choice. But the film does explicitly make its way to Montréal by the second half. The nudity here is more blatant than in the previous instalments, but it’s unfortunately always followed by gory violence. Canadian content includes snowmobile jousting and death by a snowblower, but don’t imagine a more entertaining film than it is—Ilsa the Tigress of Siberia remains a cheap, dull, obnoxious, sordid exploitation film—hardly even funny, let alone exciting.

(In French, On Cable TV, January 2020) Sigh. I suppose that I knew what I was going to get. Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS is infamous for having popularized the baffling Nazi Exploitation subgenre combining gore and nudity. Sadly, it’s a Canadian film and it spawned three sequels (the first of which I saw before the original, further establishing what I was going to see) and remains a standard reference for trash cinema buffs. Much like the wider torture-porn horror genre, I have a hard time understanding the appeal of such movies, and Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS remains its exemplar. The first thirty seconds are not bad, as we’re shown a buxom blonde (series protagonist Dyanne Thorne) having sex and then taking a shower. So far so good… but then the coercion becomes apparent (she’s the warden of a concentration/prison camp; he’s a prisoner) and then the film moves on to castration… The rest of the film is an unrelenting ordeal of nudity, gore, sexual abuse and torture. The Nazi camp setting becomes a plot permission to portray terrible atrocities, and seldom has so much nudity been so less arousing. By the first ten minutes, you will be contemplating existential questions such as: Why does this film exist? Who in their right mind would make this or watch this? What am I doing? In a charitable mood and with the ever-worse example of Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks in mind, I will recognize exactly three qualities to the movie: 1. Ilsa is a terrific character in her depravity and while the film is difficult to watch as it is, it would have been unbearable had that character been played by a man, which leads me to: 2. There is an unnerving sense of masculine fear running through the movie (which starts with castration) that, while common to exploitation movies and subservient to thrilling its audience, is still interesting to contemplate (the sequel would remove some of that female agency) even though: 3. There is an actual plot here and an all-out final rebellion that restores some sense of order to things (the sequel would have far fewer excuses and a more perfunctory ending.). But none of those actually make Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS worth a look except for strong-stomached film historians—it’s certainly not arousing, fun, thought-provoking, uplifting or any adjective we associate with worthwhile cinema.

(In French, On TV, October 2018) Ew. But also: What was I expecting? Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS is notorious as a particularly vile piece of sex/gore exploitation filmmaking, and its first sequel (of three) Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks is very much in the same vein. Yes, there is a lot of nudity—star Dyanne Thorne has a compelling presence in or out of clothes. Alas, this sole redeeming feature is more than sunk by the nastiness of the rest of the film, during which gory deaths manifests itself through torture, genital mutilation, outright slavery, forced surgery and the likes. Perhaps worse yet is the film’s gleefully sadistic atmosphere: don’t go looking for sympathetic characters or anything feeling like a happy ending, because this is not that kind of film and the best we can hope is the greater evil being defeated by the slightly lesser evil. Even as a jaded horror viewer, I felt queasy during much of Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks—I have trouble imagining anyone actually wanting to be associated with this film. And yet, and yet, I’m almost certain that sometime in the future, I will succumb and try watching the other films in the series. Just to see if they’re any better. The curse of curiosity…