I've been a fan of Russ Meyer ever since the early 90's when I first heard "Thunderkiss '65" by White Zombie. The song uses some samples of what is possibly Meyer's best film, FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! So I searched out the film, and it blew me away, from there I searched for every Russ Meyer film that I could get my hands on. No easy task by the way, especially when you're teenager that couldn't afford to pay $60 bucks for a VHS copy (if you could find a store cool enough to be selling them in the first place) or not being able to go into the 'adult section' where Meyer's films usually ended up in (which I always thought was ridiculous).
Luckily, I grew up near Seattle, Washington, and discovered the holy Mecca for movie geeks known as, SCARECROW VIDEO. A 2 story building that looked more like a library than a video store, had just about every movie made (mostly VHS at the time). Tucked away in an upstairs corner, was a room dedicated to sexploitation films. I believe it said you had to be 18 to go in, but no one cared. There I found every Russ Meyer film ever released on video! It took about a month to see them all. I found, as with some of my other favorite directors (Lucio Fulci is another), not every movie was great, but the ones that were, made me a fan for life.
Topping the list of my favs are FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL!, MUDHONEY, VIXEN, UP!, COMMON LAW CABIN, BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (Meyer's most obtainable film), MOTORPSYCHO, LORNA, BENEATH THE VALLEY OF THE ULTRA-VIXENS, and most definitely the movie I'm reviewing today, SUPERVIXENS.
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SUPERVIXENS could be looked at as Russ Meyer's salute to the films of…well, Russ Meyer. Allow me to explain. Most of the characters and even some scenes are call backs to his previous films (Meyer would only make 2 more films after SUPERVIXEN, not including the non-movie PANDORA's PEAKS). For example, there's a character is the film called SuperCherry, a reference to the Cherry character in CHERRY, HARRY and RAQUEL. In fact most of the women in the film are names of characters from previous films with 'super' added to them. So needless to say, SUPERVIXENS would not be a good movie to start with, if you're wanting an introduction to Russ Meyer, but it can stand alone as well---it's just more fun if you've seen a few of the other films that I mentioned, first. The film could almost be a spoof of Meyer's previous work which shows what a great sense of humor about himself and his films.
SUPERVIXENS is a story of a guy named Clint Ramsey (Charles Pitts) who, depending on how you look at it, is either a lucky guy (he gets lots of tail) or a very unlucky guy (it always gets him into trouble). Clint has a girlfriend from hell named SuperAngel (Shari Eubank) that he only puts up with because she's very hot. SuperAngel is one cold-hearted, conniving, evil bitch. When Clint refuses to play hide the kielbasa with her, she goes crazy and starts throwing shit at him, and they end up wrestling around. They end up in the front yard where a neighbor sees the melee, and he calls the cops. Clint is arrested (though he's the one with injuries) and SuperAngel ends up having an affair with the cop that arrested him, Harry Sledge (gotta love that name) played by go-to TV actor, and Meyer regular, Charles Napier.
Harry has a problem though, he can't get it up. This is unfortunate for SuperAngel because Harry is hung like an elephant's trunk (a prosthetic penis that puts Dirk Diggler's to shame). When SuperAngel decides to give Harry the same treatment she did Clint-- let's just say Harry's not a gentleman. In fact he's down right psychotic. SuperAngel calls Harry everything in the book that can bruise a man's ego, but when she slaps him, he becomes unglued. What follows is one of the most violent beatings of a woman (though not extremely graphic) I've seen put to film. To start he hits her, which makes her hide in the bathroom. When it seems like he's not gonna be able to break down the door, she laughs at him, and goes right back to talking smack. She even starts the tub to take a shower. Harry doesn't give up, eventually he gets a knife, and is so filled with rage he punctures the door so much that he's able to break through it. He stabs her which makes her fall into the full bath tub, he gets in the tub, and proceeds to stomp her to death (and I mean stomp, like jumping both feet in the air). After that he throws an electric radio into the tub, killing SuperAngel by electric shock, which causes an fire, and burns down the house. This is just in the first 20 minutes of the film. Leave it to Meyer to go from humorous to shockingly serious in seconds flat.
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When Clint gets out of jail, he has no job, no home and no girlfriend, so he hits the road. Clint meets a lot of characters on his journey---mostly REALLY horny women. First, he's picked up by some swingers (John Lazar and Sharon Kelly) that rob him. He's then found by a farmer (Stuart Lancaster, reprising his Lute character from MUDHONEY)) who lets him stay on his farm, and work the field (another MUDHONEY call back). Of course the farmer has a smoking hot mail order bride (from Austria or Sweden, I don't remember) who's a complete nymphomaniac. As you can probably figure out—that situation doesn't last long, so Clint is soon on the road again.
Clint then ends up at a motel where the motel's owner has a promiscuous deaf/mute daughter. Yeah, that ends bad for Clint as well. Soon he stumbles across a road stop/gas station called Supervixen's. The owner of the place, SuperVixen (Shari Eubank again in a duel role) falls for Clint and they shack up, run the truck stop together, and frolic through the forest naked (Meyer loved outdoor sex and nude frolicing). Everything is finally going good for Clint, until Harry Sledge comes back into the picture.
Ever since Harry killed SuperAngel, he's been on the run as well. When he crosses paths with Clint, he figures he should kill him too. Clint ends up becoming chums with Harry, whom he doesn't recognize in civilian clothes (without his cop uniform, mirror shades and motorcycle helmet). Harry concocts a scheme to kill Clint, and use SuperVixen as bait in the exciting, if not bizarre climax of the film.
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If this all seems very over-the- top, that's because it is. Meyer makes crazy, campy, over-the-top movies, and did so without shame. The men are he-men types with good looks, huge jaws, and big cocks and the women are tough, big breasted, voluptuous, sex goddesses. The thing about Russ Meyer is--he pulls it all off. He's a great director, and somehow pulls decent (in some cases great) performances out of actors who usually have never acted before (or ever again for that matter). His movies usually feature jazz/rock scores that always please, and loads of gratuitous nudity and violence. What's not to love?
Now SUPERVIXENS is by no means, a flawless film. The humor is ultra cheesy, and the plot gets a little confusing in parts (why exactly Harry is trying to kill Clint is never really clear). Also, like I mentioned, you have to have seen some of Meyer's other films before you can truly enjoy this one. The references to his other films are everywhere. I also found the SuperSoul character kind of annoying. Other than that, I love SUPERVIXENS and consider it my second favorite RM flick, after the legendary, FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL!
Above all that, not too many scenes go by during SUPERVIXENS without a naked, beautiful, well endowed woman, and that is why Russ Meyer is the king of sexploitation.
SUPERVIXENS trailer