The British censors have a lot to answer for. By creating a list of films which in their opinion will deprave and corrupt anyone who watches them they have subjected me to some badly made, boring and extremely bizarre movies which I would probably never heard of if it hadn't been for them and I love them for it! Although censorship in the UK has been greatly relaxed since the video nasty scare, we are still a conservative nation and a few of those films still remain banned and unavailable since it is illegal to sell films in the UK unless it has a rating from the BBFC.
The Beast in Heat hasn't actually been submitted to the BBFC since being prosecuted all those years ago and there really isn't any point in trying because if I know one thing it's this - this film will NEVER legally see the light of day in this country.
The plot is really nonsense. The Nazis are in town and in some dodgy basement a scary female scientist (the superb Macha Magall) is trying to produce some sort of randy beast for reasons that aren't really that clear. Here she throws poor naked local lasses in with him where he rapes them to death. If this isn't enough she also tortures them in other ways as well. Meanwhile, the local partisans are blowing up bridges and trying to infiltrate the Nazis for information while arguing amongst themselves.
The obvious aim of a film like this is to shock and dare to go where no film has gone before. It puts the film on banned lists and it rises to immortality when really it should have been forgotten years ago.
Yes, the production values are bad, the acting is bad, the dubbing is laughable. The partisan parts are there to flesh out the run time and no attempt has been made to make those sections coherent. Characters appear and disappear, you haven't a clue really who anyone is and what they are meant to be doing half the time. Although the priest is brilliant, especially when he gets angry! Of course the film is really about what goes on in the Nazi basement. Conceptually these scenes are horrendous. Water torture, finger nails pulled off, eaten alive by rats. In practice though they are so badly done you are almost embarrassed for the filmmakers.
There were a few interesting things I found though. The rape scenes are filmed in such a surreal way that it takes the edge of the disgust you should be feeling. Lots of weird camera angles and bizarre close ups of the man-beast are more trippy then anything else and completely at odds with the way the rest of the film is shot. Conversely the scene where the evil Doctor gets her horribly ironic comeuppance is shot in a more conventional way, much less swirly camera and loads more focus on her suffering really made for uncomfortable viewing.
Also the ending is rather sad and strange and would almost be poignant if there where any earlier attempts at plotting or character development, even just a little.
What I find interesting about exploitation films, even one as bad as this is that you can always find teeny tiny glimpses of attempts made by directors to actually be interesting rather then just shoot and cash the paycheck.
All in all this film is likely to offend a lot of people, likely to bore the others but I have a high trash tolerance and I found myself drawn in to the film for all its faults and enjoyed it for what it is - high camp, tasteless, disgusting filth!
The Beast in Heat hasn't actually been submitted to the BBFC since being prosecuted all those years ago and there really isn't any point in trying because if I know one thing it's this - this film will NEVER legally see the light of day in this country.
The plot is really nonsense. The Nazis are in town and in some dodgy basement a scary female scientist (the superb Macha Magall) is trying to produce some sort of randy beast for reasons that aren't really that clear. Here she throws poor naked local lasses in with him where he rapes them to death. If this isn't enough she also tortures them in other ways as well. Meanwhile, the local partisans are blowing up bridges and trying to infiltrate the Nazis for information while arguing amongst themselves.
The obvious aim of a film like this is to shock and dare to go where no film has gone before. It puts the film on banned lists and it rises to immortality when really it should have been forgotten years ago.
Yes, the production values are bad, the acting is bad, the dubbing is laughable. The partisan parts are there to flesh out the run time and no attempt has been made to make those sections coherent. Characters appear and disappear, you haven't a clue really who anyone is and what they are meant to be doing half the time. Although the priest is brilliant, especially when he gets angry! Of course the film is really about what goes on in the Nazi basement. Conceptually these scenes are horrendous. Water torture, finger nails pulled off, eaten alive by rats. In practice though they are so badly done you are almost embarrassed for the filmmakers.
There were a few interesting things I found though. The rape scenes are filmed in such a surreal way that it takes the edge of the disgust you should be feeling. Lots of weird camera angles and bizarre close ups of the man-beast are more trippy then anything else and completely at odds with the way the rest of the film is shot. Conversely the scene where the evil Doctor gets her horribly ironic comeuppance is shot in a more conventional way, much less swirly camera and loads more focus on her suffering really made for uncomfortable viewing.
Also the ending is rather sad and strange and would almost be poignant if there where any earlier attempts at plotting or character development, even just a little.
What I find interesting about exploitation films, even one as bad as this is that you can always find teeny tiny glimpses of attempts made by directors to actually be interesting rather then just shoot and cash the paycheck.
All in all this film is likely to offend a lot of people, likely to bore the others but I have a high trash tolerance and I found myself drawn in to the film for all its faults and enjoyed it for what it is - high camp, tasteless, disgusting filth!