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Title: Ilsa - The Wicked Warden (2000) |
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Review of Ilsa - The Wicked Warden
- Prolific Spanish sexploitation legend Jess Franco's entry into the Ilsa sweepstakes is actually a knock-off called Greta, the Mad Butcher. A red-tressed Dyanne Thorne is the (what else?) sadistic warden of a Latin American political prison posing as an institution for sexually disturbed women, but despite the name change she's still the arch, statuesque Joan Crawfordesque dominatrix with big hair, a bigger bust, and a Nazi growl. Franco muse Lina Romay is Greta's smoldering, often naked sex slave, a willing masochist who falls in love with a new prisoner (who just happens to be an undercover agent searching for her missing sister) and finally turns on Greta in a ferocious cannibalistic revolt. In between are the usual women-in-prison tropes (catfights, long showers, floggings, and electroshock interrogations) and a few new twists, including a perverted game of pincushion sex and a violent gang rape organized in the spirit of "experimental therapy." It doesn't quite reach the threshold of violent sadism established by Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS, but it's no Girl Scout picnic either. Franco brings his unique sensibility to the Ilsa genre and provides a modicum of craft to the film, making it by default the most accomplished of the otherwise bluntly directed series. --Sean Axmaker
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Comments for Ilsa - The Wicked Warden
- Posted on 2006-07-16
Fast forward review
Nothing really, but I've been kind of hard on old Jess lately, and I notice my old review here only gave him two sleaze stars. That's not quite fair, it really should have been three I think; one for the pins scene, one for really good extended shower scenes, one for the NTRL factor, including Ilsa bathing bosoms, and one for the overall nastiness - with one redacted to properly penalize him for rotten effects that ruin a few abuse scenes, including one of the worst whipping scenes ever, with a soft whip obviously soaked in trademark Franco fake blood to simulate whip marks. There, now I feel better.
Score: 3
- Posted on 2005-08-24
Franco takes on Ilsa
The first film in the Ilsa series, "Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS," stands as one of the most horrific exploitation films ever made. Seriously. Even I blanched over the atrocities depicted in the movie. Moreover, it's a rare bird as far as films go because it never loses its power to shock. In fact, I think the first Ilsa movie becomes even more disgusting with each subsequent viewing. Apparently, audiences flipped their cookies after seeing the movie at the drive-in. Word of mouth led to bigger ticket sales, which in turn led to thoughts about a possible sequel. If you've seen "She-Wolf," you know the idea of a sequel is laughable since Ilsa took a header at the end of the movie. But the wacky world of cinema knows no bounds when the scent of money is in the air, and even the demise of a primary character won't prevent Hollywood hacks from revisiting old ground. Remember the Bobby Ewing dream sequence imbroglio? If they can get away with something that outrageous, resurrecting the deceased Ilsa presents no problem at all. Ilsa returned to die again, and then Jesus "Jess" Franco moved in to take his crack at the Ilsa mythology. Thus was born "Ilsa, the Wicked Warden."
Dyanne Thorne reprises her role as a sadistic torturer of young women in Franco's effort, but this time she's hamming it up somewhere in South America as the head kook at a clinic for female degenerates. The plot is the equivalent of crayon scribbling from a three year old: a young woman escapes from this clinic, receives mortal wounds during the escape attempt, and manages to tell her story to a local physician before dying (Or does she?). This man, Dr. Milton Arcos (Jess Franco himself!) tries to goad the authorities into launching an investigation into the clinic. Nothing much happens at a public committee meeting, but a young woman named Abbie Phillips (Tania Busselier) accosts Arcos in the parking lot afterwards. She's the sister of the aforementioned victim, also a journalist, and she wants Arcos to help her infiltrate the clinic in order to bring the evildoers to justice. Like I said, a three year old with a box of crayons likely crafted the script. It's not like the plot is all that important; it serves merely as the most tenuous of threads with which Franco can tie together his usual penchant for nudity, depraved violence, and ham fisted dialogue. One thing is for certain: "Ilsa, the Wicked Warden" easily maintains the sleaze factor established in the first two films.
The arrival of Abbie Phillips into the sanitarium sets in motion a series of banal events that culminate in the execution of head warden Greta...er, I mean Ilsa (Dyanne Thorne). While trying to discover what happened to her sister, our heroine befriends a female inmate who tells us with great glee how she used to be a man, runs afoul of cellblock bully Juana (Lina Romay), and witnesses the red haired Greta/Ilsa beast rule over the patients with an iron fist. The sleaze washes over us in waves. Numerous shower scenes involving all the girls fail to provide kicks thanks to frequent cutaways to the leering visages of Greta's two ugly female sidekicks. At least someone finds this stuff thrilling. Then there is the subplot involving the male prison guard making cash on the side by selling films of the atrocities in the clinic to a guy on the outside. And who can forget Greta's shenanigans? Who can forget how she uses Juana as a human pincushion? Or the injections and electric shocks she delivers to recalcitrant prisoners? That our gal looks like a million bucks with red hair, a black beret, and a bust that makes grown men weep while committing her outrages is just icing on the cake. By the time the film shows us the consumption scene--intercut with real footage of lions devouring meat--we all must acknowledge we've just scene a "classic." Check, please!
"Ilsa, the Wicked Warden" came out under a number of alternate titles, including "Greta, the Mad Butcher," "Wanda, the Wicked Warden," and "Greta, the Sadist." I happen to enjoy a few Jess Franco films, like "Faceless" and "Vampyros Lesbos," but this one falls into the schlock category. If you want to know what doesn't work here, take your pick: dialogue, dubbing, editing, pacing, direction, acting, and lighting--it's all abysmal. Even after Anchor Bay gave the film a boost during the transfer to DVD, the movie still looks cheap and cheesy. Franco probably shot it on inferior film stock to save a few bucks. The best thing about the film, and I know I'm stretching to say something positive, is how Dyanne Thorne looks like she's making a different film than the one we're seeing, and indeed this suspicion receives confirmation from the actress on the commentary track. Yet despite the myriad negatives, and I could go on and on listing even more vileness contained in the movie, I'm going to give this film three stars. Why? Because Dyanne Thorne is still a real kick to watch even though she might as well be phoning in her performance from Venus. She's fascinating.
Extras on the disc include a trailer, cast and crew biographies, and a commentary track. Give this last feature a listen. Dyanne Thorne, Howard Maurer, and "humorist" Martin Lewis discuss every aspect of the film. All three roundly condemn the picture as pure schlock, and discuss everything from room accommodations while on the shoot to the weird world of Jess Franco filmmaking. Lewis seems fascinated with the number of films made by Franco, and equally fascinated by the bizarre alternate titles most of his films carry. Fans of exploitation will definitely want to give this a watch, although I recommend the first two Ilsa films over this one.
Score: 3 - Posted on 2004-12-31
Even as an exploitation film it failed
Theres not much good to say about "Ilsa the Wicked Warden"
even Dyanna Thorne is awful in it, instead of showing her
beautiful blond hair, Jess Franco in all his absurdity dies
it read, and turns the movie into one of these 70's
porn like black exploitations film where all the girls are
taking hot showers and doing each other. Now dont get me
wrong, most people will watch that, but the rest of the
film is a bit of a mess.
There is some inguenity at the beginning, we see a girl
escaping a guard, and we get a wild goose chase but
eventually she is caught and thrown into the torture
prison system where Ilsa (Thorne).
The ending though while laughable is typical of a Franco
film where the harassing abusing enemy gets eaten to shreds.
Even for Ilsa fans though, the movie is a disappointment.
Score: 2
- Posted on 2004-10-30
Icky Ocky Poo!
Very disappointing. You'd think that Ilsa in the hands of a foreign director could take the series into new territories. Nope. In fact, this is NOT an Ilsa film. In Europe it has a different title, but when this turd washed up on American shores they decided to slap the Ilsa name on it only coz it has Dyanne Thorne playing a sexy, sadistic warden. Her name isn't even once said in the film! The Ilsa films are a fun mix of camp, sex and violence. Franco's film plays it straight(though it's unintentionally funny) and goes more for the sex, Sex, SEX! The violence takes a back seat. This ruined it for me. There are a record number of naked women and lesbian scenes in this film-and even that gets boring fast. In all honesty, if this is what I wanted to see, I'd just go the whole nine yards and rent a porno flick. Why beat around the bush(no pun intended)? Even Thorne is wasted in this film, not that she's given much to work with. She doesn't even look as hot as the first two Ilsa films, though she can still be my wicked warden any day. You also get to see a little more of her anatomy this time-Big whoop! It's not worth the other 92 minutes and 58 seconds. However, if sex is your bag, baby, then you might actually like this "Ilsa" film more than the others. It all comes down to what you're looking for.
Score: 2 - Posted on 2003-06-02
Fast forward review
What's the point of writing about the plot and the acting? Who cares? The only real question is the number and quality of the sleaze scenes. And, you want to know if there's any additional "uncut version" sleaze on the DVD. Nope.So, what we got here is two stars. One is for the pin cushion scene, which is an absolute classic. We got a nubile teeny babyfat bod for the cushion and the big ones of Ilsa to drive the pins in, a must have scene, the only negative being that the cushion girl looks like the short-haired Liza Minnelli type chick being abused by the motorcycle gang in that "Billy Jack" movie, not my type, though she is much more zaftig, so I'll forgive this lapse. I normally don't play the audio track, but actually Ilsa has a good final line. There's pre-pinning massage nudity here too, lots of plump flesh, so that the whole scene is just about perfect.
The other star? Just for a lot of nudity, particularly big Ilsa bosoms. Lot's of shower scene stuff, but the rest of the sleaze is not very good, particularly the bad whipping scene with usual rotten Franco effects (the man could never film a proper whipping scene, just awful). And it's not near as nasty and explicit as it could have been, as usual with these terrible things. That's it.
Score: 2