NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the respective disc.

ADDITION: Kino Cult 4K UHD (November 2025): Kino have transferred Don Edmonds' Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks to Blu-ray and 4K UHD. It features a brand new HDR10 master, with support for both Dolby Vision and HDR10 high dynamic range formats, preserving the film's original 1.66:1 aspect ratio.

While we are in possession of the 4K UHD disc, we cannot resolve the encode yet, and therefore, cannot obtain screen captures. We hope to add to this review at some point in the future. So, the below captures are from Kino's 2025 1080P Blu-ray transfer.

This upgrade delivers pleasing details, richer colors, and improved contrast over prior Blu-ray and SD editions, highlighting the exploitation film's sunny desert exteriors and dingy palace interiors with greater depth and clarity, though the inherent limitations of the 1976 low-budget production - such as pleasing sporadic grain and soft focus - will likely remain evident, making it a faithful yet unpolished visual treat for grindhouse fans. Cinematography by Dean Cundey (Jurassic Park, Road House, Big Trouble in Little China, Back to the Future, Romancing the Stone, The Thing, Jaws of Satan, Escape from New York, The Fog, Halloween, Creature from Black Lake) adds a professional sheen, though the style remains artless and dingy, focusing on close-ups of nudity and gore rather than artistic flair. The film's sunny outdoor locations in California's San Fernando Valley (standing in for the Middle East) export crisp, colorful imagery in 2160P that show contrasts in the dingy, artless interior sets like the palace dungeons and harem quarters. The overall look is cartoonish and campy, blending women-in-prison tropes with spy thriller elements, featuring accurate flesh tones, faithful, balanced, colors (slight teal domination in spots) without oversaturation, and noticeable but non-distracting grain that enhances its 1970s grindhouse vibe. This is the definitive home theatre presentation of this controversial sequel ideal for those appreciating the film's sleazy, over-the-top thrills in high definition.

NOTE: We have added 40 more large resolution 4K UHD captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray and 4K UHD, Kino use a DTS-HD Master dual-mono track (24-bit) in the original English language with an optional French DUB. The mono-derived mix maintains the original's raw, campy auditory experience, ensuring the sleazy soundscape of torture and intrigue comes through effectively on contemporary home theater systems. There is no credited score. Stock music, including Hammer horror cues, enhances the campy tone, while practical effects for tortures (e.g., exploding devices) showcase inventive low-budget ingenuity. It sounds authentic via the lossless. Kino offer optional English subtitles on their Region 'A' Blu-ray and Region FREE 4K UHD.

The extras on the Kino Cult 4K UHD release are comprehensive for cult film enthusiasts, featuring two audio commentaries: one with actress Dyanne Thorne, director Don Edmonds, and actor Howard Maurer (Thorne's husband,) moderated by humorist Martin Lewis, sharing behind-the-scenes anecdotes and production stories; and another by film historians Kat Ellinger (All The Colours Of Sergio Martino) and Moscow-born filmmaker, writer, and producer Evgueni Mlodik (The Silver Moonlight,), offering in-depth analysis of the movie's exploitation genre context and cultural impact. Additional supplements include a 1/2 hour interview segment "She Wolf of the SS: Interview with Don Edmonds, Part Two" by Elijah Drenner (American Grindhouse,) exploring the series' origins and Edmonds' (who also acted in TV shows; Green Acres, Gidget, and Petticoat Junction) directorial insights; a theatrical trailer highlighting the film's marketing; a lengthy stills gallery with production photos, posters, and title cards, all housed on the accompanying second disc Blu-ray to complement the main feature.

Don Edmonds' Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks is the first sequel to the notorious 1975 exploitation film "Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS," continuing the series' tradition of blending sexploitation, sadism, and over-the-top violence in a women-in-prison subgenre framework. Starring Dyanne Thorne (Point of Terror, The President's Analyst, Love with the Proper Stranger, Naked City TV series,) as the titular Ilsa, the film relocates the character from a Nazi concentration camp to a fictional Middle Eastern sheikdom, where she oversees a harem of enslaved women trained for the sexual gratification of oil tycoons and dignitaries. Produced on a modest budget but with improved production values compared to its predecessor - including better locations and a more expansive set design - the movie exemplifies 1970s grindhouse cinema, prioritizing gratuitous nudity, gore, and torture over narrative coherence or character depth. While not directly connected plot-wise to the original, it maintains the series' standalone structure, allowing Ilsa to reincarnate in new settings for each installment, here infusing elements of spy intrigue and geopolitical satire amid its exploitative core. Ilsa, now the harem's overseer, manages the arrival and "training" of kidnapped women from around the world, who are delivered in wooden crates and subjected to dehumanizing preparations, including forced grooming, medical alterations, and psychological conditioning to ensure obedience. Assisting her are the lethal bodyguards Satin (Tanya Boyd - Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling, Black Shampoo The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood and 650 episodes of the soap opera Days of Our Lives) and Velvet (Marilyn Joi - Wonder Women, Cheerleaders Wild Weekend, Nurse Sherri, Galaxina, The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington, Black Samurai, Blazing Stewardesses, Black Samson, The Naughty Stewardesses), a pair of scantily clad, Amazonian enforcers who relish in physical dominance and torture. Supporting roles like Satin and Velvet provide physicality and diversity, their thong-clad, ball-ripping fight scenes standing out as brutal highlights, while enslaved women (including Russ Meyer alumni Uschi Digard - Prison Girls - as Inga Lindstrom, Haji - The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Supervixens, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Head, Motorpsycho!, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! - as Alina Cordova, and Colleen Brennan - Shampoo, Foxy Brown, Invasion of the Bee Girls - as Nora Edward) function as props for objectification and torture, rarely given agency beyond the revolt. Dyanne Thorne's Ilsa dominates the screen as a sadistic, hyper-sexualized anti-heroine, blending Teutonic authoritarianism with vulnerability through her romantic subplot, marking a slight evolution from her purely monstrous portrayal in the original. At its core, the film revels in themes of power dynamics, sexual degradation, and sadomasochism, portraying female enslavement as a vehicle for graphic exploitation while satirizing (albeit crudely) oil politics and Western imperialism through the American spies' oil-grabbing mission. "Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks" stands as a quintessential piece of 1970s exploitation cinema, thriving on its unapologetic blend of sex, violence, and absurdity while offering little in terms of depth or innovation. Though flawed by poor acting and narrative padding, its campy energy, inventive tortures, and Thorne's iconic performance make it a diverting, if offensive, artifact of grindhouse excess, best appreciated by those with a tolerance for trashy thrills. Like Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS, Kino Cult's 4K UHD of "Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks" emerges as a collector's dream for fans of 1970s exploitation cinema, Dyanne Thorne or its own brand of taboo-nostalgia - featuring the best presentation to-date, two commentaries plus a slipcover in the original pressing and reversible cover art (see below.) Recommended to that niche. 

Gary Tooze