Exploitation Retrospect | The Journal of Junk Culture and Fringe Media
Ilsa, Tigress of Siberia (1977)
ICC Video | Review by Dan Taylor

The year is 1953, and Dyanne Thorne (ILSA: SHE WOLF OF THE SS, ILSA: HAREM KEEPER OF THE OIL SHIEKS) is the big-breasted, Commandant of a Siberian gulag for Russian political prisoners. Like any good worker she takes great joy in tossing javelins through the head's of attempted escape artists, and watching as her toadies play "Ring the Bell, Win a Kupie Doll" with the guy's noggin'! However, massive-mammaried Russkie babe that she is, ol' Ilsa (though she's never referred to by that name) takes even greater joy in using the aforementioned toadies as sexual toys to fulfill her body; which, by the way, is "full and warm... just like Mother Russia." Yep, we've got softcore sex and hardcore violence... WHAT A COMBO!

The scenes in Siberia are pretty harsh, considering that we get to see: a Siberian Water Torture; an arm wrestling match where the loser's arm gets cut off by a chainsaw; lots of attempted brainwashing; and a double-penetration sex scene where Ilsa uses a set of spurs and a riding crop on the two guys who are making bouncy-bouncy with her!

However, just as luck would have it, Stalin up and dies, and everything Ilsa and Co. have been doing is considered "officially not nice" by the new Russian leadership. What's a girl to do? Well, she simply picks her two favorite fuck beasts/toadies, and the three of them start torching the camp and killing everyone... both sides... in a spectacular orgy of violence!

Which you'd think would bring us to the end of the flick? Not frickin' likely, because the story jumps ahead 24 years to 1977 where the lone survivor of the Great Gulag Holocaust of '53 is now the security chief for the Russian National Hockey Team. When he knuckles under to the Commie sex drives of two of the players and accompanies them to a Montreal brothel, you just know that trouble's a brewin'!

Sure enough, Commandant Ilsa just happens to be a whorehouse madam who brainwashes anyone who stands in her way. Old habits die hard, eh? As expected, she kidnaps the security chief because she thinks that he is there to bring her in and "settle the score." After doing a quick brainscan to determine his greatest fear, she discovers that he has an incredible fear of having his dick bit off by a tiger... then again, name me a guy who doesn't! Well, Ilsa obviously hasn't been reading the Pravda Post lately, because things are just a little bit different in Russkie-land these days, and they send in a hockey team full of special agents to "settle the score" with the Buxom Bimbo from Bratislav.

The end battle is whacky, violent and ironic (all at the same time), much to the credit of writer Marvin McGara and director Jean Lefleur (succeeding Don Edmunds who helmed the first two installments of the series). What could have amounted to a silly T&A revenge epic turns out to be a fun and entertaining mix of sex and violence that I enjoyed more than the legendary ILSA: SHE-WOLF OF THE SS. While not as fiercely perverse as that exploitation high point, TIGRESS OF SIBERIA is more entertaining, especially for violence-heads.

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