Main Cast: Tura Satana, Haji, Lori Williams, Sue Bernard, Stuart Lancaster
Release Year: 1966
Country: US
Run Time: 83 minutes
Plot
Exploitation maven Russ Meyer created a cult classic with this turbo-charged action film. Three curvaceous go-go dancers in a cool sports car go on a desert crime spree, led by Varla (the amazing Tura Satana), a busty, nasty woman dressed entirely in black. Varla's lesbian moll, Rosie (Haji) -- who has an extremely overwrought accent -- and reluctant bimbo Billie (Lori Williams) are along for the ride. When they meet a naïve young couple, Tommy and Linda (Ray Barlow and Sue Bernard), Varla challenges the man to a race then kills him by breaking his back. They take Linda hostage and drive to a house owned by a crippled old lecher (Stuart Lancaster) and his muscular but retarded son, Vegetable (Dennis Busch). Varla discovers that the old man has money hidden on the property, so the girls try to find it. Meanwhile, Vegetable's perverted father tries to trick him into assaulting one of the girls as he watches, but his other son (Paul Trinka) finally shows up to save the day. A great deal of bloodshed, campy catfighting, and funny dialogue fills the bulk of this fast-paced comic book of a movie. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
Review
"Welcome to violence!" The sinister voice-over that begins Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! warns its presumably all-male audience that a new breed of woman exists, feral females that hide deceit and murder under their soft seductive skins, and apparently, these women are everywhere. This bit of misogyny leads directly into an equal-opportunity tale of mayhem where the ladies are indeed fully in charge. Some modern-day revisionists like to refashion this film into some sort of proto-feminist fable, but the only real twist is allowing the ladies to be villains as amoral and violent as any classic moustache-twirler. The male leads (particularly Stuart Lancaster's odious wheelchair-bound millionaire) are either hateful of women or exist to offer knight-in-shining-armor assistance when necessary, so don't look to Faster, Pussycat! for any feminist theory. Nevertheless, this is still the crowning achievement of Russ Meyer's stunning catalogue. The arch, stylized dialogue is packed with spicy slang and poetic asides, and the action is briskly paced. Tura Satana steals the show as the lead bad girl, alternately yelling and purring her way through a role that rips up scenery and co-stars in equal measures. Every inch of the film entertains, from the wild desert drag racing sequences to the sexually charged fried chicken lunch that the characters stop fighting each other long enough to share. Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! has a deliciously ruthless rhythm that few films of such modest aspirations ever achieve -- it could very well be the most finely crafted exploitation film ever made. ~ Fred Beldin, All Movie Guide
The film features gratuitous violence, sexuality, provocative gender roles, and campy dialogue. It is one of Meyer's more provocatively titled and explicitly exploitative films, yet unlike most of his films, it does not contain explicit nudity.
Three thrill-seeking go-go dancers — Billie (Lori Williams), Rosie (Haji), and their leader, Varla (Tura Satana) — encounter a young couple in the desert while drag racing. After killing the boyfriend (Ray Barlow) with her bare hands, Varla drugs, binds, gags and kidnaps his girlfriend, Linda (Susan Bernard). On a desolate highway, the four stop at a gas station, where they see an old man (Stuart Lancaster) and his muscular, dimwitted son, known as the Vegetable (Dennis Busch). The gas station attendant (Mickey Foxx) tells the women that the old man and his two sons live on a decrepit ranch with a hidden cache of money. Intrigued, Varla hatches a scheme to rob the lecherous old man, who is confined to a wheelchair.
