Forget that we're on a bad movies’ blog, and also the title of this post. And think about this story: the Nazis are trying to create a super race of men and at the same time the fighting with the resistance rage, with the partisans who tries to give freedom to the people but suffer the counter attack of the Nazis who kills also civilians.
It sounds good, it may seem like a pretty good story for a movie about the period, a war movie that highlights the atrocities of the Nazis and the liberation struggles of the partisans.
Instead, dear friends, we are faced with a film of Luigi Batzella that sign as Ivan Kathansky, and at the same time released " Kaput Lager-The Last days of the SS", and that with the usual enormous confusion and the little craft, creates one of the largest "scult " of the history of Italian cinema.
If we are able to erase the image of the real drama of the infamous actions of the Nazis that we see in "The Beast in Heat", we find ourselves in front of a movie that makes you laugh in several moments (a few times voluntarily), and that bores in many others. Batzella as in " Kaput Lager-The Last Days of the SS" doesn’t know what to do and blends the concepts of war movies to those of a species of "Nazisploitation", also using scenes from his old movie, "Quando suona la campana"
The level of trash is very high, probably the highest in his filmography and ranges between nonsense, errors, a poor production and absence of the slightest artistic aspect both in front of and behind the camera.
And everything could work, the basic story, as told at the beginning but also one of the characters, the one played by Macha Magall a fast meteor of genre cinema, which has the right mask to be very bad, Dr. Ellen Kratsch. The game then who is really the "Beast in Heat " is not bad, because it can be either the doctor, as she is told or the super human that the Nazis held in a cage and quilting of "Tebodrixina" a substance that unleashes his sexual appetite (we like more the hypothesis of the Dr. ) .
From here on, there is a dizzying descent into pure weird. Doctor and super man are shown at in the early scenes and with him we touch a sadness point. Because he is played by Salvatore Baccaro (here as Sal Boris) former florist near Cinecittà who became a character actor widely used in those years, for his disease. A health problem that has opened to him the doors of the cinema, but only for "monstrous"characters. In this case Baccaro, present among others in a few scenes, although it may be the beast of the title, spends all his time in a cage naked, grunting, screaming and killing sexually human guinea pigs give to him by the doctor for her sinister experiments .
Apart from that, we have the Nazis, stupid as usual, with a swastika for a while ' stitched on the contrary, who prefer prostitutes (one in a very poor scene) rather than oversee the strategic points, see the bridges, that resistance detonates.
The Nazis takes revenge on the people of a small village giving to the movie a number of scenes very idiotic. Laughing on the infamous actions of the Nazis is a bad thing and we never thought to have funny moments seeing them, but Batzella succeeds in creating a compelling carousel, with a Nazi slightly pushed by an old lady who falls lifeless to the ground or with the launch in the air of a baby who seem lighter than a balloon and finally two uncertain old ladies who mourn a dead man, grinning and looking into the camera. The tortures of the faithful of Hitler are equally ridiculous and touching the peak with the dangerous rats that should eat a prisoner, but in fact them are peaceful Peruvian guinea pigs who are in search of some salad.
Surprisingly in the setting, Batzella doesn’t make errors, because we are near Lombardore, in the Canavese area, in Piedmont, where there was really the Resistance. Unfortunately, for some unknown reason all the partisans, have an accent that starts from Sicily and stops from in Rome , and no, there isn’t nobody from Piedmon or from north-central !
And on this basis we see the struggle between the Nazis and partisans, with the first who also
carry out this very important experiment, however, managed only by a doctor. Dr. Ellen Kratsch to destroy the resistance decides to kidnap all the women of a village to use them in her laboratory. Meanwhile, the partisans between betrayals and important losses carry out their important mission and "The Beast in Heat" , whatever he is, will have what he deserves.
Released and immediately forgot this "Nazisploitation" was filmed in Lombardore according to some sources and according to others in the Valle Del Malone in Cuneo area and over the years has become an unmissable chapter for lovers of trash . We understand the reasons .