MCBASTARD'S MAUSOLEUM: Russ Meyer's SUPERVIXENS (1975) (Severin Films Blu-ray Review + Screenshots)

Russ Meyer's

SUPERVIXENS (1975)

Label: Severin Films

Region Code: Region-Free

Rating: Unrated

Duration: 105 Minutes 29 Seconds

Audio: English Mono with Optional English

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)

Director: Russ Meyer

Cast: Charles Pitts, Shari Eubank, Charles Napier, John Lazar, Uschi Digard, Haji

Coming a few years after his flirtation with the 20th Century Fox with Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and The Seven Minutes, SuperVixens (1975) finds the titties-obsessed exploitation master back in independent territory and even more obsessed with tits, and quite a bit more savage than anything he had done previously. In it a simple gas station attendant named Clint (Charles Pitts, Skatetown U.S.A.) has a super-sexy, ultra-horny wife named SuperAngel (Shari Eubank, Chesty Anderson U.S. Navy). Unfortunately she is also super-bitchy and is driven into a jealous rage when the busty SuperLorna (Christy Hartburg, Movie Madness) flirts with her guy at his place of business. She takes her rage out on him, savagely attacking Clint when returns home, after fucking him 'natch, and then taking an axe to his truck. The cops are called Sheriff Harry Sledge (Charles Napier, The Silence of the Lambs) responds, the unsettlingly toothy-cop pulling them apart and tells Clint he needs to go cool off at the bar for a while, which he does. Later SuperAngel seduces the cop, unaware that he is a complete psychopath, and when he turns out to be a limp dick she cannot bite her tongue, and chides him for his poor performance, calling him a "faggot", which pushes the cop over the edge. What transpires is a pretty fucking savage attack, with SuperAngel getting the wind knocked out of her with a punch to the gut, before barricading herself in the bathroom. The increasingly unhinged cop repeatedly stabs into the bathroom door with a steak knife, eventually breaking it down and brutally stomping her repeatedly in the bathtub, and when that somehow fails to kill her he tosses a radio into the bathwater, electrocuting her, then burning down the house. Clint meanwhile has been at the bar and should have a pretty tight alibi as he was being pursued by sexy bartender SuperHaji (Haji, Demonoid), but after rebuffing her come-ons and saying she has small tits compared to his wife she refuses to give him an alibi, making him the prime suspect, so he hits the road out of town.

The film sort of has a theme in so much as foxy women in this film throw themselves at Clint, but he's not interested and bad things happen because of that. While thumbing it he's picked up by a swinging young couple in an El Camino, driver Cal (John LaZar, Night of the Scarecrow), and his girlfriend SuperCherry (Colleen Brennan, Foxy Brown). Cal seems to get off on seeing his girlfriend try to get it on with Clint, but when she tries to give him a hand job Clint insists on them pulling over so he can get off, and ends up beaten, robbed and stranded. After that he's picked-up by kindly farmer Lute (Stuart Lancaster, Batman Returns) who offers him work on his farm, but Clint has to fend off the farmer's much younger, busty Austrian mail-order bride SuperSoul (Uschi Digard, Superchick), whose attempts to rape him get him chased off the ranch and the end of a pitchfork. After that he winds up at a motel off the highway where the proprietor warns hm about messing with his sexy deaf-mute daughter SuperEula (Deborah McGuire, The Young Secretaries), but when her father leaves for a few hours SuperEula convinces a somewhat wary Clint take her out into the desert in her dune buggy, topless naturally. All of these busty, sex-craving women throwing themselves at him, all I have to say is that Clint has more will power than me! Anyway, her overly protective father ends up following them out into the desert with the local sheriff in tow, and Clint again finds himself hitting the road to evade the authorities.

The final scenario in this string of sex romps has Clint winding up at SuperVixen's Oasis, a roadside diner and gas station, looking for a cheeseburger, but he hits it off with the diner's owner SuperVixen (the lovely Eubank again) who hires him on as a gas station attendant. The pair become quite an item, life is great, and Clint seems to finally have found a woman he can love who isn't crazy, but is plenty horny. Things take a turn when the murderous cop Harry Sledge shows up with a bag full of dynamite, things go wrong. Clint doesn't recognize him but Sledge knows exactly who he is, and sets his sights on him and his new gal.

This is a quintessential slice of Meyers exploitation, his camera leering over the curvy assets of all the women, obviously a tit-man from way back, Meyer's eye for eye candy is sure to satisfy your craving for busty and lusty women who are larger than life. His appreciation of none-too-subtle phallic symbolism is fully intact, we get plenty of gorgeous women atop phallus shaped rock formations, and his eye for kinky voyeurism is still very much here to enjoy. I love that despite SuperAngel being murdered early on she sort of comes back into Clint's life via an apparition of sorts who might be manipulating events, perhaps even bringing the murderous Sledge back into the path of Clint and his new found love interest. Napier is really wild here, a compete psychopath, that early scene of him murdering SuperAngel is quite potent and the stomping, strangling, and electrocuting the busty tart, it's not anything you will ever forget once you see it, it's gotta be one of the toughest and grittiest sequences he's ever filmed.

SuperVixens is pretty much peak Russ Meyer for me, it's humorous, a bit nasty, and chock full of busty babes from start to finish, most of which poor Clint attempts to fend off with varying degree of success. I also think it's one of Meyer's best looking flicks, an attractive road film of sorts and the Arizona desert scenes look terrific, it's plenty colorful, and the shot composition is consistently striking.

Audio/Video: Russ Meyer's Supervixens (1975) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Severin Films in 1080p HD framed in 1.85:1 widescreen, restored by Severin Films in conjunction with The Russ Meyer Trust and scanned in 4K from the original negative stored at The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Like their release of Vixen this is another brilliant restoration with gorgeous colors, depth and clarity never previously afforded the film in any previous home video format, with well-managed film grain, supple skin tones, and solid black levels. It should also be note that the previous DVD editions were formatted in open matte 1.33:1, this is a the proper theatrical widescreen version of the film, so there is some image lost at the top and bottom on the Blu-ray, but this is as it was intended to be seen theatrically and it looks great. Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 2.0 dual-mono with optional English subtitles, and it sounds terrific. .

Extras kick-off with an Archival Audio Commentary With Writer/Cinematographer/Editor/Producer/Director Russ Meyer; the the 26-min Russ Meyer Versus The Porn-Busters – Mike Carroll Interview With Russ Meyer; the 19-min The Return Of Harry Sledge – Interview With Actor Charles Napier; the 40-min The Incredibly Strange Film Show Season 1, Episode 5: Russ Meyer, plus the 2-min Trailer and a 3-sec TV Spot. The single-disc release arrives in a black keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork, which looks to emulate the vintage Russ Meyers Merchandising Corp. VHS tapes.

Special Features:
- Archival Audio Commentary With Writer / Cinematographer / Editor / Producer / Director Russ Meyer
- Russ Meyer Versus The Porn-Busters – Mike Carroll Interview With Russ Meyer (23:54)
- The Return Of Harry Sledge – Interview With Actor Charles Napier (18:45)
- The Incredibly Strange Film Show Season 1, Episode 5: Russ Meyer (39:17)
- Trailer (2:03)
- TV Spot (0:33)

Screenshots from the Severin Films Blu-ray: