THE BEAST IN HEAT

World War II. In a German outpost in Italian territory, Dr. Ellen Kratsch conducts genetic experiments aimed at creating a superior race. Her research consists of making healthy women mate with a man-ape kept in a cage. Meanwhile, the Italian resistance seeks a way to sabotage German forces, so the German soldiers try to obtain information about the partisans' intentions from the women kidnapped for the "beast" and by torturing prisoners. In the 1970s, for a short period, a "ugly, dirty, and bad" cinematic genre was in vogue that depicted tortures and grotesque-erotic-violent situations practiced by the Nazis during World War II. It was called by many "Nazi-Porno," even though it was not pornographic (in the sexual sense) at the origin, although it was sometimes customary for distributors to spread these films with non-original inserts taken from hardcore movies. The paternity of this genre is usually attributed to the American and deeply exploitative "Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS" and the Italian and authoritative "Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom." Well, between Edmonds' film and Pasolini's film, there is quite a wide qualitative gap, and in other places, they probably would not dare to compare these two works, yet the violence, disgust, and recklessness of these films, skillfully mixed with the atmospheres of W.I.P. (Women In Prison), another prison genre in vogue at the time, set trends, and in the span of a decade, dozens and dozens of "Nazi-Porno" films were produced, a large number of which in Italy. Mattei, Garrone, Caiano, Batzella, many are the filmmakers of our country who have ventured into this genre, and it is the last mentioned, Luigi Batzella, who belongs to "La Bestia in Calore," perhaps one of the most famous Italian nazi-pornos and probably the only one that really approaches the world of horror. Batzella is not a great director, this is known even by the cobblestones of Via Nazionale, "Nuda per Satana," "Il plenilunio delle vergini," and "Kaput Lager - The Last Days of the SS" (another nazi-porno) are often remembered more for their involuntary trashy charge than for real artistic merits, and yet his name is quite well known in the territory of Italian exploitation, and probably "La bestia in calore" is his most representative film. Speaking ill of this film is a bit like shooting at the Red Cross, as much squalor and incompetence are generally noticeable in every single sequence. The direction is simply amateurish, despite the decades of experience of the director when he was dealing with this film, signed with the pseudonym Ivan Kathansky; the editing is made up of a messy patchwork of second-hand sequences derived from a previous film by Batzella, the war movie "Quando suona la campana," badly inserted (the visual jumps are very evident) to show some long-shot war scenes and some tanks. On the screenplay by Batzella himself (with the contribution of Lorenzo Artale), one can easily gloss over, given the objective inconsistency, the repetitiveness, the naivety, and the overall implausibility. Among the performers, only Macha Magall and Salvatore Baccaro stand out (and are remembered). The former, coming from "Casa privata per le SS" and "Spell - Sweet Slaughterhouse," is undoubtedly effective and quite good in the role of the sadistic Nazi doctor; the latter is one of the most famous character actors in our genre cinema, present in countless films ranging from horror to comedy and often in roles that saw him as a monstrous and violent Neanderthal man. In this film, the late Baccaro is the "beast" (although this nickname is clearly given to Dr. Kratsch by a prisoner) who rapes the young and beautiful women of the partisans, and he is on stage completely naked imitating sadly simian sounds. The only positive point that can be attributed to "La Bestia in Calore" is the effectiveness of some torture scenes that are definitely disturbing; above all, the girl whose pubic hair is torn out by the beast and then eagerly devoured by the same, then there is an impressive tearing of the nails, a water torture, and a castration. In short, "La Bestia in Calore" is one of those films so bad that they should be seen at all costs, it has achieved a certain celebrity perhaps undeservedly, but lovers of trash have something to enjoy. Known abroad as "The Beast in Heat" and "SS Hell Camp."