Ilsa is once again up to her tricks, her tricks being a lot of sex and murder! Ilsa The Tigress Of Siberia is out on 4K from Kino Cult!
Listen, if you’ve seen an Ilsa movie (which, this being the 4th in the series, I’m guessing you have) you know what you’re getting here; Ilsa once again appears as a violent, sexually dominating monster somewhere and some time where everything sucks. First, it was a Nazi occupied Europe, then an Oil Sheik’s harem, and now in a soviet gulag (and also gulp Toronto!). This time around, she’s torturing political prisoners in frozen Siberian tundra, where she hunts men with spears, feeds others to her Siberian tiger, and has DP sex with her collection of Soviet goons (there is, uh, a lot of double penetration in this film. Like, more than you’re even thinking right now).
Where it shifts a bit, though, is the film essentially resets at the half way mark. After escaping the gulag after Stalin’s death, Ilsa sets up in “modern” Toronto, where she runs a brothel filled with brainwashed prostitutes (always has to be one element that is extra rough here). But, soon, her past catches up with her, as she, and her surviving gang of group sex appreciators must fight off KGB ninjas (really comes off the rails in the final 30 or so).
This series continues to be wholly singular in its bad taste. Each of these films are filled with intense moments of tonal whiplash, as we’ll shift at breakneck speeds from goofy comedy bits, to eye rolling exploitation action sequences and characters, to intense and sometimes harrowing violence and gore, to just-below-porn level sex scenes. Tigress isn’t as brutal as say, She Wolf (a film that includes a few sequences that could’ve been in Come & See), as this one is more interested in being a bit of a globe trotting crime/spy caper. But don’t worry, there is more than enough sex and bloody murder to let you know you’re watching an Ilsa film.
Specs:
There’s no real getting around that this looks pretty rough; years of what I’m assuming were mismanaged/incorrectly stored prints will do that. But, I think it adds to the overall vibe; the intense graininess and discoloration add to the seediness of it all, giving you that “sitting in a dank 42nd street theater while the guy next to you fiddles with himself” from your own home couch!
For special features, there’s a few here for those Ilsa-heads out there; an audio commentary by film historians Jason Pichonsky and Paul Corupe, alternate safe-for-TV version footage, a sidebar conversation with novelist and critic Tim Lucas and author, artist and film historian Stephen R. Bissette, and a theatrical trailer.
The Ilsa films aren’t for everyone; hell, these films don’t seem to know who they are really for. But, if you’re a fan of really, really ill advised exploitation cinema, these are kinda the crown jewels of the genre.
