Page 33 - Alternative Europe Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945

C H A P T E R 1

' T H E F I L M YOU A R E A B O U T T O S E E I S B A S E D O N D O C U M E N T E D
F A C T ' : ITALIAN NAZI S E X P L O I T A T I O N C I N E M A

Mikel J. Koven

The cycle of Nazi atrocity films ... are without a doubt some of the most distasteful examples
of exploitation ever committed to film. ... It is interesting to speculate whether the sordid
events depicted are so outrageous due to the fact that they seek to exploit events from recent
history. ... Time can be a great healer but I doubt whether any film which revels in the misery
of the Holocaust can ever be anything other than a highly dubious form of 'entertainment'
which can only be viewed as an example of the lowest forms of trash culture.1

THE NAZI SEXPLOITATION FILM

This chapter deals with a kind of European exploitation cinema which, as noted by Adrian Luther-
Smith above, seems to defy even the most nominal categories of a 'taste' culture. This is a cinema
that emerged out of a long-standing exploitation tradition, but even by those standards seems to have
pushed the envelope too far. Italian exploitation cinema has always been characterised by cycles of

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