“’Russ Meyer’s ode to the violence in women.’ ’Filmed in Glorious Black and Blue.’ How daunting the task of summing up something so suffused with epic and earthshaking energy that its very taglines are historic? The only film that ever came close to having two different taglines as immediate and immortal as Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is Tom DeSimone’s Reform School Girls (‘So young- so bad- so what!’ and ‘Some fought to keep from being degraded- for about ten seconds,’ but even so, it’s not the same). Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is one of those films like The Rocky Horror Picture Show or The Sorrow and The Pity or The Human Centipede where even if someone has never seen it, they have a stronger than vague idea of what it is.
“This is a film whose idea is so strong that it permeates the culture to an extent that is difficult to define but easy to experience. Wherever a burlesque troupe rules the night, or a group of friends find themselves led into intrigue by the baser instincts, or macho foolishness is hoist on its own petard, there the legacy of this 1965 film is secure.
“Russ Meyer was a kinetic editor, an incisive filmmaker, and a physician for the id prescribing archetypes at war and more sensation than the audience’s reptilian brain could process. But with Faster, Pussycat! he had collaborators who sank their manicures into the very chemicals of the emulsion, and from there into our hearts and minds. Tura Satana, Barbarella ‘Haji’ Catton, and Lori Williams are an iconic trio, and their volatile chemistry gives the tale of three go-go dancers out for kicks who find themselves in the middle of a mystery an impact that delivers gutbucket fun while also adding a touch of the mythic, empowering struggles and defining fetishes with elegant cruelty and boisterous energy. There’s as much Ovid and O. Henry woven into Jack Moran and Meyer’s script as there is jiggle and judo, and our central triad are where audience loyalty and focus remain. Many have tried (Meyer included) to recreate the earthy magic at the center of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, but five and a half decades on, no film has. No film could.” ~ Jason Shawhan
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