Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

Camp, comic and lurid even in black and white, Russ Meyer’s masterpiece follows a trio of homicidal go-go dancers blazing their way across the desert.

  • Director

    Russ Meyer

  • With

    Tura Satana, Haji, Lori Williams

  • USA 1965. 83min

  • 35mm

  • Certificate

    18

A perennial Scala favourite that galvanised Meyer’s cult reputation and trademark penchant for nudity, trashy narratives, tongue-in-cheek dialogue and domineering female characters. This B&W tale follows a formidable trio of homicidal go-go dancers as they blaze their way across California. Camp, comic and distastefully lurid, it was initially dismissed by trailblazing critic B. Ruby Rich, who later recanted to label it ‘a celebration of bad-girl empowerment’.

Contains strong bloody violence, scene of sexual violence.

Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive. With thanks to the Russ Meyer Charitable Trust.

See the film with intro by film scholar and writer Virginie Selavy on Thursday 18 January.

Film on Film