Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS
Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS is a 1975 film from the USA and Canada, directed by Don Edmonds, running 96 minutes. reelscum files it under women in prison and nazisploitation.
- Year
- 1975 · 1970s films
- Runtime
- 96 min
- Director
- Don Edmonds
- Updated
- 29 Oct 2026
- Obscurity
- known (20/100)
- Also known as
- Ilsa la louve des SS
- Banned in
- Australia · Norway · West Germany · UK
Defined in the glossary: Women in prison, Nazisploitation
Refused classification in Australia, banned in Norway and West Germany, and rejected by the BBFC.
Shot on the leftover Hogan's Heroes set. Nothing here is defensible; it's catalogued, not recommended.
The most notorious entry in the cycle, and its production history tells you everything. It was shot in nine days on the standing set of the sitcom Hogan's Heroes, immediately after that show was cancelled, and Dyanne Thorne plays a camp commandant conducting sadistic experiments before the inevitable revolt.
It is crude, cruel exploitation using the ultimate taboo setting as a backdrop for sex and torture, and it spawned three sequels as Ilsa relocated to a harem and a prison. It is catalogued here as industrial history, not entertainment.
Genuinely tasteless, and studied more than it is enjoyed.
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Written about
- Banned, cut and confiscated
A Fulci print flown out of the country, an Australian rating that just means no, and a German court that filed The Evil Dead under criminal violence. Three states, three machines for making a film disappear.
On these lists
- Notorious by reputation
Films whose legend outran them: banned, prosecuted, or argued about for forty years by people who mostly have not seen them.
Filed alongside
Love Camp 7
The film that invented nazisploitation six years before Ilsa made it a genre.
Salon Kitty
Nazisploitation with a real budget and Tinto Brass's dirty fingerprints. Ilsa was the knock-off.
The Night Porter
A serious, much-argued-about film that producers immediately misread as a template.
Caged Heat
Jonathan Demme's debut, and it is visibly a Jonathan Demme film.
Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks
Same Ilsa, new empire. The harem keeps the whip, loses the swastika.
The Gestapo's Last Orgy
The most extreme of the sadiconazista cycle, and the only one shaped like a love story.
99 Women
Franco doing the formula early, with Mercedes McCambridge as the warden.
Women's Prison Massacre
Late Italian entry. Laura Gemser, and a body count instead of a plot.
Black Mama White Mama
The Defiant Ones with Pam Grier, shot in the Philippines by a Filipino who actually knew the terrain.
Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion
Sold as a women-in-prison quickie. Shot like an art film. Meiko Kaji barely blinks.
Chained Heat
Linda Blair goes to prison. A sleazy 80s update of the formula, with a corrupt warden and a hot tub.
Barbed Wire Dolls
Jess Franco's contribution to the cycle. Cheap, delirious and utterly shameless, even for him.