The Black Gestapo
Dir: Lee Frost
1975
**
Lee Frost's Nazisploitation/Blaxploitation classic The Black Gestapo, is low budget film making at it's best. Don't get me wrong, it's a terrible film but it's also awesome, in incredibly bad taste, is sensationalist nonsense and a must for all Exploitation/Blaxploitation/Naziploitation fans (You've got to give it credit for the three genre crossover at least). The castration scene is pretty cool too and fans of Sexploitation films rejoice as there are quite a few ladies in the background you may well recognise (you filthy deviants). So bad it's good, a bit of a cult classic within the genre, one of a kind and needs to be seen to be believed.

Dear God No!

Dir: James Bickert

2011

*

Dear God No! has an awesome poster. This is where the awesomeness ends. It is heavily influenced by, and is a poor homage to, every genre of exploitation. A celebration of Grindhouse if you will. It includes ideas from Biker movies (Bikesploitation), Monster movies, Chicks with Guns movies (ever so slightly leaning towards Women in Prison films, Sexploitation, Naziploitation, Striptease and Shocksploitation. None of them are particularly well executed, in fact every one of them is butchered. It is a group of mates making a film together, all good fun if you are one of those friends, bloody awful if you are anyone else. The acting is shockingly bad, the sound is inaudible, like it was recorded from a camcorder. Some of the effects are sufficient enough, the Sasquatch actually looked pretty good in the closing scene but everything else is fairly terrible, even when considering the tiny budget, they really could have done better. Some of the content was also pretty nasty, I may well have given credit to films like The House on the Edge of the Park for example but it had an important creative agenda and were part of a movement that opposed a ruling, rather than being sick films for the sick minded, there was something else going on, a social message and many such films were reactionary examples of symbolism. Dear God No! is just sick for sick sake, it is even hinted at in the film that it is a competition to see who can be the most disgusting. It makes Pink Flamingos look like art, which it isn't. I beg everyone to avoid this gratuitous and tasteless rubbish and to save your time, it demeans horror/exploitation fans to be honest, it is of poor quality and misses the point. 

Surf Nazis Must Die
Dir: Peter George
1987
*
Peter George's 1987 cult classic Surf Nazis Must Die comes under the very specific sub-genre of Beachploitation (not to be confused with the Beach Party sub-genre). It was certainly a new one by me before watching the film/writing this review and I can't think of any other film that may fit the category. With a title like Surf Nazis Must Die you have got to deliver the goods but I'm afraid Surf Nazis Must Die really doesn't. Apart from the fantastic character of 'Leroy's Mama', Surf Nazis Must Die doesn't have anything going for it. Nothing. They're not even proper Nazis. Even for a trashy Troma film this is quite bad and I'm not sure it deserves its cult status or its cult following. That said, a remake (with a bigger budget and better writing) should definitely happen.

Iron Sky
Dir: Timo Vuorensola
2012
*****
Timo Vuorensola's Iron Sky could not have impressed me more. First off, it's a film by the people for the people, one of the new clever things that have come from the Internet that is genuinely cool. On the face of it it seems like a cheesy and somewhat ridiculous modern B-Movie/Exploitation film, and it is but it's so much more. It's very much a satire. Some times you need to be ridiculous to point out the ridiculous. Iron Sky is one of the best satires out there, it honours Dr. Stranglove by not just adding it's tribute but for taking their concept one step further. It points out society's obvious modern flaws and ideas, 'mobile phones in space' is probably something most kids would take a while to work out wouldn't work, but then the ideas that Astronauts could be chosen on their looks and colour doesn't sound unfeasible, even though it is - but then is it? Remember W. Bush going over to Iraq to give the troops a huge Christmas turkey that turned out later to be a fake - the solders had the same lousy food they'd had the whole year but boy did it look good in the papers. This is called propaganda - something the Nazi's where pretty good at (The American media isn't too bad at it either). This is explored in the film by getting a designer in to help them with their new image, the Sarah Palin character as president isn't just a bit of fun for comic effect here. Sarah Palin vs Nazis is a ridiculous concept because their views are not that dissimilar but tell someone you're anti-Nazi and you're on to a winner. This film is so sly it's no wonder many have overlooked its undertones. It's basically saying if the Nazi's did come back they'd be very little for them to do, fascism has moved on and is wearing it's own camouflage these days. Anti-American (in this instance, it could be Capitalism, the West, right-wing etc) and anti-Nazi are two similar ways of thinking these days, it's what the rest of the world thinks anyway. Timo Vuorensola is a clever guy, if you look at his past work this is quite typical. I know loads of people who had no idea what this film is really about and I think it's quite sad that Satire seems to be a dying art, hopefully films like this will keep it alive but then many people didn't get the British comedy Four Lions either and us Brits invented satire. Getting Liabach to do the soundtrack was also an inspired decision - more reason to see that it's a political wolf in sheep's clothing. I thoroughly enjoyed it, the SFX aren't too shabby either.

Salon Kitty
Dir: Tinto Brass
1976
****
Tinto Brass has quite a reputation but I thought Salon Kitty was actually quite good. There I was expecting one of the most debauched and disturbing Nazisploitation films of all time and what I actually got was a half decent history lesson with a bit of nudity thrown in for good measure, although it is based in a brothel so to have no nudity would have been historically inaccurate (that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it). This film is usually classed as shocking and is often thrown in with Salo, Sweet Movie, Caligula etc and it's really no where near as shocking (unless you find pubic hair offensive?). It's shocking for a couple of seconds and then you see it (enjoy it even) for what it is. I thought it was directed beautifully and I really liked the songs.