PANDORA PEAKS (2002)

If Russ Meyer’s last three films of the seventies were a reckoning of his career and his views on sex and sexuality as the golden age of pornography pushed him out of the market, Pandora Peaks, Meyer’s direct-to-video final film from 2002, was a way to reckon with the first half of his career, namely […]

BENEATH THE VALLEY OF THE ULTRAVIXENS (1979)

In Up!, Russ Meyer’s gory sex mystery from 1976, Raven De La Croix’s Margot Winchester grinds on a hillbilly cop through multiple marathon sex sessions in which no position goes untried and no location goes unexplored. Yet, despite all the physical exercise, Margo Winchester eventually looks down at her stud and, in her best Mae […]

UP! (1976)

After the refreshing journey of self-discovery that was 1975’s Supervixens, Up!, Russ Meyer’s follow up from the following year, is hostile and mean-spirited at times and curiously sexy and experimental in others. While the previous picture felt vigorous and refreshing, Up! began a slight downward trajectory for Meyer as the humor began to feel old-hat […]

SUPERVIXENS (1975)

With its audacious, astonishing, Christy Hartburg-emblazoned one-sheet that reminded audiences that Russ Meyer loved boobs as much as flamboyance, 1975’s Supervixens roared into theaters specifically designed to make the money that had eluded him with The Seven Minutes and Black Snake. But aside from its return to home base to generate some much-needed commercial appeal, […]

BLACK SNAKE (1973)

Taken separately, 1971’s The Seven Minutes and 1973’s Black Snake feel like curious outliers in the world of filmmaker Russ Meyer. Taken together, they show the work of an artist who was trying to vie for some kind of recognition outside the realm of sexploitation; strong examples of Meyer: The Artist. The frustration felt by […]

THE SEVEN MINUTES (1971)

The movie kicks off like any other Russ Meyer film with a briskly cut burst of vivacity as a striking and buxom woman (Mora Gray) walks her German shepherd (or as is really case, is being walked by her German shepherd). However, the film quickly settles into the car of two vice cops who ogle […]

CHERRY, HARRY, & RAQUEL! (1969)

In Russ Meyer’s Cherry, Harry & Raquel!, released in 1969 as the filmmaker inched closer to Hollywood, the cock of Erica Gavin’s eyebrow causes the soul of Vixen to discorporate and it finds itself inhabiting the shell of Uschi Digard, herself trapped in a lunar landscape of desert nothingness where man’s determination grinds fruitlessly against […]

VIXEN! (1968)

The cool and calming bush country of the Canadian northwest, a far cry from the usual California and southwest American hotspots that serve as the playing fields for Meyer’s usual cast of characters, proves itself incapable in staving off the creeping evil that invades the hearts of men and women alike. For amid the peaceful […]

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 […]