1. Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965)
A trio of go go dancers - the statuesque Varla, her devoted lesbian lover Rosie and sex mad blonde bimbo Billie are the stars of the show in Russ Meyer's Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! All three women, in the Meyerian tradition, are well stacked and run rings around the men they come into contact with. The girls, when not go go dancing, love to race their cars in the Californian desert. Varla (played by the incredible Tura Satana) is the leader among the group - barking out orders to the other two women. Varla is so badass she kills a man with her bare hands and takes his young girlfriend hostage. The central plot in the film has the girls investigating a curmudgeonly disabled old man and his potential heavy stack of cash. The old man is a sexual sadist and one of his sons - called The Vegetable - is mentally deficient but a mighty fine body builder. Billie the group nympho tries to seduce him but fails and goes off to get pissed with a bottle of Scotch. Varla tries to seduce the other weedy, bookwormish son while Rosie looks on in agony. But they are distracted by drama happening elsewhere. Eventually everything comes to a gruesome climax where Billie is killed by Varla, Rosie is killed by The Vegetable and the by now maniacal Varla is unfortunately run over by the young girl she kidnapped. Along the way there is plenty of fabulous dialogue, lots of cleavage and smatterings of violence. This film is what would have been called a 'roughie' - but Meyer would later focus mainly on sexploitation - not violence. The film remains an enduring testament to RM's undeniable talent in the world of cinema, and also as one of the must see cult films of all time.
A trio of go go dancers - the statuesque Varla, her devoted lesbian lover Rosie and sex mad blonde bimbo Billie are the stars of the show in Russ Meyer's Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! All three women, in the Meyerian tradition, are well stacked and run rings around the men they come into contact with. The girls, when not go go dancing, love to race their cars in the Californian desert. Varla (played by the incredible Tura Satana) is the leader among the group - barking out orders to the other two women. Varla is so badass she kills a man with her bare hands and takes his young girlfriend hostage. The central plot in the film has the girls investigating a curmudgeonly disabled old man and his potential heavy stack of cash. The old man is a sexual sadist and one of his sons - called The Vegetable - is mentally deficient but a mighty fine body builder. Billie the group nympho tries to seduce him but fails and goes off to get pissed with a bottle of Scotch. Varla tries to seduce the other weedy, bookwormish son while Rosie looks on in agony. But they are distracted by drama happening elsewhere. Eventually everything comes to a gruesome climax where Billie is killed by Varla, Rosie is killed by The Vegetable and the by now maniacal Varla is unfortunately run over by the young girl she kidnapped. Along the way there is plenty of fabulous dialogue, lots of cleavage and smatterings of violence. This film is what would have been called a 'roughie' - but Meyer would later focus mainly on sexploitation - not violence. The film remains an enduring testament to RM's undeniable talent in the world of cinema, and also as one of the must see cult films of all time.