FINDERS KEEPERS, LOVERS WEEPERS! (1968)

The opening of Russ Meyer’s Finders Keepers, Lovers Weepers!, the first of two Meyer films produced in 1968, is something of a bait and switch. As the red Fiat seen in Good Morning… and Goodbye! rushes across the California desert, it sets itself up to be a typical Meyer film set in his specific brand […]

GOOD MORNING… AND GOODBYE! (1967)

Back in the midst of something that could pass for civilization after the remote and riparian rumpus that was Common Law Cabin, Russ Meyer began to sharpen his satirical knives with Good Morning… and Goodbye! Raucous and horny, sweaty and dirty, Good Morning…and Goodbye! mixes elements from almost every Russ Meyer film that came before […]

BLOOD BATH (1966)

If I were a filmmaker, I would kill for the ad campaign American International afforded to Blood Bath. One could stare for hours at its gorgeously macabre one-sheet which overflows with all kinds of promise for the brave audience member who would dare pay a ticket to witness the horrors ahead. Maidens being lowered into […]

9 LIVES OF A WET PUSSY (1976)

Taking an unusual but wholly committed route to achieving his big screen ambitions, nascent filmmaker Abel Ferrara assumed the pseudonym of Jimmy Boy L and assembled a rag tag group of friends, lovers, and associates to create 9 Lives of a Wet Pussy, his debut feature film from 1976. While making an independent film with […]

THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK (1972)

Come sit around the campfire and let me spin you a tale of a more innocent time. 1972, to be exact. The year when a G-rated horror film like Charles B. Pierce’s The Legend of Boggy Creek could make a killing and become an absolute phenomenon. Not only did it cement the areas in and […]

COMMON LAW CABIN (1967)

Outside the lack of a need for an optical house to create the opening titles, as far as one can tell, the major aesthetic difference between Russ Meyer’s gothic period and his soap opera period really comes down to whether he was shooting in color or black and white. On a thematic level, there was […]

MONDO TOPLESS (1966)

If you track a filmmaker’s career, you’re likely to see things like Mondo Topless occur. No, I don’t mean that every auteur is going to crank out a quick-buck skin flick when they hit rough waters but, instead, there is a pattern of running back to material that’s bankable once experimentation bites them in the […]

FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! (1965)

In the opening seconds of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, Russ Meyer marries sex and violence by employing a stern narration that explicitly welds the two together over the visual of the ever multiplying, squiggly optical soundtrack that quickly fills the frame like a hostile takeover. The narration warns the audience that you’ll never know where […]

EATEN ALIVE (1976)

Located on the “Horror on the Bayou” bonus feature on Arrow’s impeccable 2015 Blu ray release of Tobe Hooper’s Eaten Alive, the director spends seventeen long minutes uncomfortably spinning a tale of the production of his third feature from 1976. His recollection is so hazy, halting, and half-recalled that, given the final product that played […]

THE DEVIL IN MISS JONES (1973)

Alone in her solitary New York apartment on a cold, soggy day, Justine Jones (Georgina Spelvin) takes a long look at herself in the mirror, draws a bath, and then slashes her wrists. She wakes to find herself in a still room overlooking a nicely landscaped lawn where Mr. Abaca (John Clemens) acts as a […]