Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! is Director Russ Meyer's magnum opus of tough, female awesomeness! I have always adored Tura Satana, and while she was great in ASTRO ZOMBIES and THE DOLL SQUAD, nothing matches her performance as Varla in FPKK. Her blisteringly hot, savage persona leaves me breathless!

As the leader of a thrill-seeking, criminal trio, including Rosie (Haji) and Billie (Lori Williams), Varla is a violent, exotic wonder to behold! She smokes cigars! She kicks major a__! She kills with her black-gloved hands! Varla is the genuine article, so, if you love tough chicks, then prepare to bow to their queen!

In her later years, I got a chance to correspond with Ms. Satana -no, I'm not "somebody", she was just cool like that- and she said that she had always loved this movie and working with Meyer. Her life story is as amazing as her film persona! What we see on screen is real. She never BS'ed around. Tura was one of a kind and is sorely missed...

From the beginning, you know that this monochrome Meyerama is going to be incredible--an Outer Limits-style voice-over pontificating on the violence of women, followed by incredible shots of three luscious go-go girls doing the Watusi as the Bostweeds' wild theme song blasts from the jukebox. Then things move to the barren California desert for drag races, catfights, murders, straining blouses, and a lot of torrid action and satirically overwrought melodrama.

Tura Satana, Haji, and Lori Williams have terrific screen presence as the three tough-as-nails villainesses. They're the kind of deliciously over-the-top antagonists that you root for, especially since the nominal heroine (Sue Bernard) is a ridiculous dimwit who couldn't act her way out of a paper bra--I mean, bag. Highest honors go to the amazing Satana, shouting most of her lines and dropping sexual innuendos while resting her boobs on the dinner table.

As usual, Russ Meyer fills the screen with sharp dialogue ("Breast or thigh, darlin'?") and sharp camerawork. There is no nudity, since Meyer was trying to circumvent the censors in 1966, but there are some incredibly sexy scenes all the same. Excitement and laughs abound in this straight-faced send-up of action-flick conventions. This celebrated cult classic is one big-breasted Gothic melodrama-satire that really...um...stands out!

Three beautiful female dancers are driving through the desert when they come across a young couple. They kidnap the woman and leave the man for dead. Travelling further they come across an old man living with his two sons. The old man is apparently sitting on a pile of cash and the girls do their best to separate him from it.

Knowing Russ Meyers' later movies I wasn't expecting too much from this movie. Turned out to be a much better than I expected.

It has the hallmarks of Russ Meyer movies: incredibly beautiful women as the heroes (or main characters, at least), a trashy sort of feel and mediocre performances. However, here the usual random plot is replaced by a decent one. Is an interesting, gritty adventure and the characters are quite engaging. Hardly a dull moment, is paced well and doesn't overstay its welcome. Good fun.

Expectations were very high when watching this, but its not Russ Meyers best. The superwoman are tough as nails or as a velvet glove dipped in iron as they say, almost all lines of the movie is memorable, Tura Satana and co shouts them out in the coolest fashion and this makes up for the strongest feat of the movie. I promise you'll laugh more than a few times by them..

Its cousin 'Motorpsycho' however was more accomplished than this was. The story doesn't have as much potency (no pun), the girls are good, but not all that and the absurdity reached in 'Supervixens' and 'Motorpsycho' is not reached here.

Its still a campy classic though.

While there are some who argue that it is a pro-feminist flick with lots of social significance, truth is FASTER PUSSYCAT KILL KILL is a very deliberately made bit of ultra-drive-in trash, a movie that glories in all things low-brow, low-rent, and low-neck lined. And it has a cast that makes up for their collective lack of talent with lots of attitude and lots of cleavage.

The story is as hooty as the cast. Tura Satana, she of the lethal chest, leads minions Haji and Lori Williams away from the grind of their jobs at the go-go joint and out into the desert. They race their cars. They wrestle in the water and then in the sand. They dance the watusi. They bump off this guy who shows up wearing plaid shorts. (Given his attire you might read this as a mercy killing.) Then they set their sights on an old lech and his dum-dum sons, hoping to make away with their money. Faster Pussycat indeed! The script is deliberately absurd, with an emphasis on memorable one liners that try to out-cliché all known clichés. But the real attraction here are the "pussycats." It isn't often that you see a 2D movie with 3D effects, but that's exactly what happens when Tura, Haji, Lori, and their six talents hit the screen. These are three big-busted, nip-waisted women with evil attitude, and they sneer, snarl, snap, and slither around the screen with all the aplomb of trailer park drag queens gone bad. It's more "tacky cool" than a 1965 plastic jewelry box explosion.

Now, how much you like this sort of thing really depends on how warped your sense of humor is. Cheap though it is, the thing is remarkably well done, and taken in the right way the combination of trailer-park chic, retro-hysteria, and ultra-attitude is a lot of fun... and when the pussycats hit the screen you may think you're about to get a black eye, and I don't mean from their fists! Breakout the popcorn and some protective glasses: Tura and the Pussycats are coming at ya! GFT, Amazon Reviewer