I tell ya, nobody can call me on a lack of variety! Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is next up on deck. Caught this last night on Turner Classic Movies and it’s a great little cult film. Packed to the top with violence, sexuality and campy dialogue, this 1965 Russ Meyer film is well worth a look for fans of exploitation type films. This is one of Russ Meyer’s best films and features gorgeous cinematography and a rather captivating concept.
The movie is about three thrill-seeking go-go dancers headed by the particularly fierce Varla (Tura Satana, I shit you not), who are chanced upon by a young couple in the desert. After killing the boyfriend, Varla decides to drug the young girlfriend, Linda (Sue Bernard), and take her along. A chain of events later and the three thrill-seekers are trying to rob an old pervert in a wheelchair. Unfortunately for the girls, the old pervert has two sons that will need a little seducing in order to get at the loot. Everything begins to spiral out of control and the characters inevitably collide with one another in a barrage of sex and violence.
The sexuality is interesting because this is one of the only Russ Meyer films to not actually feature a single shot of nudity. The cleavage of Tura Satana is eternal throughout the film, however, as her heaving breasts seem to be a constant reminder of the juxtaposition attempted by Meyer and Co. here. The violence and the sex appear to go hand in hand with Satana’s Varla. Incidentally, Quentin Tarantino’s opus to chick violence, Grindhouse, would feature a major character wearing a Varla T-shirt. Varla is the ultimate supervixen, a combination of cool and hot-headed passion that will either lead to her demise or lead to her getting away with it all. Somehow you can tell that she doesn’t need a man just by looking at her. If only the Pussycat Dolls were that overt and powerful in their sexuality…..
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! gets everything right in terms of the subject matter. The three girls are busty and contain enough raw sexual energy and variety of character to keep it interesting. The men in the film are the slithering type, sort of perverse and sort of “innocent bystander”, as Meyer attempts to make anti-heroes out of his lead females. Varla and the gang are vicious, but nobody’s more vicious than Varla. Each woman also has her own weak point, as evidenced as the characters begin to drop like flies. Each character ends up meeting their demise as they should, chasing desires for sex, money or blood.
The film broke down a lot of early concepts in quite a remarkable way, bringing women to the forefront here as being bloodthirsty babes instead of the damsels in distress. Here, Varla and her crew are causing all of the distress. Varla rips a poor guy literally limb from limb and terrorizes other men throughout the film, whether through her overt sexuality or through her blind rage. Meyer doesn’t dilly-dally, either, but rather he leaves many things left unsaid and many moments left unexplained. We aren’t sure why Varla and Co. are out for blood and vengeance, but they just are. Maybe it’s because they hate men and hate the way men drool over them at their jobs or maybe it’s just because they love to cause chaos.
Regardless of how you look at it, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is worth at least one look. As my wife had said when it was over: “it was good, but I don’t think I have a desire to see it again”. The film is very well done, very well shot and contains enough sex and violence to please many hardcore fans. Placing the film firmly in its context, Meyer’s piece is almost a slice of extremist cinema. The real treat in the film for me began and ended with the superlative Tura Satana as Varla.
7/10
