Love Camp – Delirium Home Video (Blu-ray)

Theatrical Release Date: Switzerland, 1977
Director: Jesús Franco
Writer: Erwin C. Dietrich
Cast: Nanda van Bergen, Ada Tauler, Monica Swinn, Esther Studer, Brigitte Meyer, Wal Davis

Release Date: February 17th, 2026
Approximate Running Time: 78 Minutes 49 Seconds
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Widescreen / 1080 Progressive / MPEG-4 AVC
Rating: NR
Sound: DTS-HD Mono English
Subtitles: English SDH
Region Coding: Region A
Retail Price: $41.98

"In an unknown South American hellhole, a guerrilla army violently kidnaps sexually mature women and forces them to serve as personal prostitutes and sexual tools in their private jungle brothel.  A beautiful new bride, Angela, is kidnapped on her wedding night and soon finds herself an "inmate" in said slammer, her delicate beauty locking the unwanted attention of the sadistic and cruel lesbian warden. As the warden leers and Angela's fellow prisoners meet gruesome ends, our heroine also finds herself attracted to the rugged leader of the local rebels. Horror, lust and lewd behaviour ensue...." - synopsis provided by the distributor

Video: 3.75/5

Love Camp comes on a 25 GB single layer Blu-ray.

Disc Size: 22.2 GB

Feature: 21 GB

No information is provided about the source. While the source mostly looks great, black levels for darker scenes are not always convincing. Flesh tones and colors look correct, image clarity is strong, and there are no issues with compression or digital noise reduction.

Audio: 3/5 (Both Audio Tracks)

This release comes with two audio options, a DTS-HD mono mix in English and a DTS-HD 5.1 mix in English. There are times when the mono track sounds echoey, while the 5.1 often sounds unnaturally loud. That said, dialogue always comes through clearly enough to follow. Included are removable English subtitles.

Extras:

Extras for this release include a photo gallery (stills/poster/advertisement), an English language trailer (1 minute, Dolby Digital mono English, no subtitles), a German language trailer (2 minutes 47 seconds, Dolby Digital mono German, no subtitles), an audio commentary with author and film historian Troy Howarth, trailers for Barbed Wire Dolls, Doriana Gray, Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun, and Satanic Sisters, and a spot glass slipcover (limited to 2,000 units). 

Summary:

Love Camp was one of eighteen films that Jess Franco made with producer Erwin Dietrich over a three-year period. Their collaboration began with Downtown and ended with Girls After Midnight.

Women are kidnapped by guerrillas and forced to work in their brothel run by a sadistic warden deep in the heart of the jungle.

The women-in-prison film is a genre that Jess Franco would work in multiple times. Although Love Camp has all of the core elements that one expects from this genre—an ample amount of nudity, sex, and moments of sadism—the result is one of Jess Franco's weakest forays into the genre. 99 Women is arguably his best women-in-prison film, while his other forays in this genre for producer Erwin C. Dietrich, like Barbed Wire Dolls, Ilsa, the Wicked Warden, and Women in Cellblock 9, fare much better than Love Camp.

From 1973 onward, there are two things that Jess Franco's best films have in common: his unique filmmaking sensibilities and Lina Romay. Love Camp is devoid of these two things. When looking over the 18 films that Jess Franco made for Erwin C. Dietrich, it is clear that in some films he had more control, while others were a director-for-hire situation. That said, Love Camp is a film that fits firmly in the latter category.

Another reason Love Camp feels generic is its absence of the familiar faces typically found in Jess Franco’s films. He often worked with a core group of actors and actresses, and the only frequent collaborator in Love Camp is Monica Swinn. The performances outside of Nanda van Bergen's role as the warden are largely forgettable, primarily because the cast is given minimal material to work with.

While Jess Franco is not a director whose films are known for their immediacy, at 79 minutes in length, Love Camp feels much longer than it is. Don’t expect much in the way of exposition; there is just enough to move things forward. The narrative is heavily loaded with moments of erotica, notably a steamy shower scene. Jess Franco’s films often employ humor, and Love Camp delivers in this regard with a parrot that screams obscenities. Ultimately, Love Camp is too much by-the-numbers filmmaking, making it a low-tier film in Jess Franco’s filmography.

The lack of extras and issues with the audio make this Blu-ray release a hard sell, only recommended for Jess Franco completists.

Written by Michael Den Boer