Review of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

Introduction

Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill is easily the best known, possibly the seminal work in Russ Meyer`s canon of cheerfully bizarre exploitation movies. Quentin Tarantino cites the movie as one of his all-time favourites, and it has gained significant retrospective critical acclaim in spite of its roots as a drive-in trash flick.

The exotic Tura Satana stars as Varla, leader of a trio of hellraising go-go dancers intent on causing mayhem. Encountering a young couple in the desert, they kill the young man and kidnap his girlfriend. Then they turn their attentions to an old man and his dim sons living in the desert.

This quintessential Meyer picture has all the standard ingredients - busty, proactive femme fatales, ineffectual, lusty men who deserve everything they get, kidnap, murder, drag-racing and double-entendre. As with all Meyer pictures, it`s the Battle Of The Sexes writ large and with no argument who the stronger and triumphant sex is (and they aren`t the blokes). Psychotically over-the-top, you can see how this movie has inspired movie makers like John Waters.

In the past, Russ Meyer has been considered little more than a pornographer, yet in all the movies he has made there isn`t a moment of genuinely explicit material. Yes, there`s some nudity in his later films - but not this one - and a fair amount of double-entendre. Faster Pussycat presents its women in this instance as villains, but what villains they are - kicking male ass left right and centre, driving fast cars and generally behaving badly.

Video

Filmed in monochrome 4:3, this 1965 opus is terribly reminiscent of those magnificently ropey exploitation flicks of the 1950s produced by Samuel Z Arkoff for his American International company. Indeed, all Meyer`s work comes across as a sex-obsessed alternative universe take on Roger Corman pictures. The same vitality and need for economy comes through every frame - and that doesn`t mean the film was done on the cheap. Well, it was done on the cheap and it shows, but the film rises above such cheap shots.

Audio

The mono soundtrack is reproduced in Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono.

Features

This is one of the better-served releases in the series, boasting a number of excellent supplements. There is a 25minute featurette on the movie called "Go, Pussycat, Go", presented in 16:9 anamorphic which interviews all the surviving principals of the picture. The trailer reel, which is included in all the releases in the series, is also present. Most strikingly there are two audio commentary tracks, one recorded by director Russ Meyer and the other by the Pussycats themselves. Unfortunately there are no subtitles to either feature or extras.

Conclusion

This film should definitely be labelled "subversive". Full of aggressive women and nasty if ineffectual men, this picture takes the age-old Battle Of The Sexes up a couple of notches. Considered a classic by filmmakers including Quentin Tarantino and John Waters, even after forty years it`s pretty strong stuff. You remember your Mum warning you about a certain sort of woman? She meant Tura Satana.