You're Trying To Seduce Me, Aren't You? - Varla

"You're a beautiful animal... and I'm weak, and I want you."

Watch out boy, she'll chew you up! Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill! was one of Russ Meyer's earliest films and despite the premise, one of his more soft core. It is probably considered more violent than pornographic, following 3 go-go dancers by night turned fast driving, tough talking, deadly femme fatales by day.

Leading the pack is viscious Varla, played by Tura Satana, a Japanese actress with exquisitely exotic looks, buxom and curvacious, making her perfectly cast as a woman you do not want to cross, but who can possess a man with ease.

She leads a gang of equally tough women, but despite their shared lust for danger, their personalities ultimately clash. Their initial mission once finishing their shift isn't quite clear, but they are taken off course wherever they are going, when gang member Billie decides to take a dip in the lake, leading to a rift between her and gang member Rosie, which Varla has to settle with a game of chicken. All this hanging around sees them embroiled with a couple of sweethearts passing by, who if it weren't for Varla's contempt for weak women and, well, all men, would have made it out of there in one piece. Having had enough of being sassed, Varla disposes of him and kidnaps her, as the gang continue onward, where they discover a local all-male family sitting on a fortune. Naturally, a plot to kill and thieve ensues.

Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill, is particularly progressive for its time. Not just for the exploitative, b-movie nature, explicit violence and prolonged shots of tits and arse, but the characters and script certainly have a lot to say politically. The all-male family consists of three equally disparate members: the old, wheelchair bound patriarch, who makes clear his old fashioned opinions on women's rights; the long suffering son acting as mediator; and the buff, but mentally challenged younger son, pushed around and verbally abused by his father.

Varla will clash with the old man who seems to see right through her. She will have to use her tough talk with him, her seductive powers of pursuasion with his eldest son and her car for the younger one.

Whatever Varla's beef with men, this film is a mixed bag of power play, battle of the sexes and indicative of the sociological turning point at the time, not just as a more liberal exercise in sex and violence on screen, but various viewpoints on women and gender roles.

The old man has a hang up with women that clearly relates to his disability, but also reveals a sense of unbearable loss when he reveals his youngest son "killed" the mother at birth. He loves and loathes women, blames them for his misfortune and is the hardest to crack with the gang's weaponised sex appeal.

The youngest son is easily manipulated, but can only take so much verbal torture until he breaks, whether it's from his father, or from Billie who tries to take care of seducing him.

The elder son is Varla's easiest task. He finds her irresistible, having been cooped up in an isolated home with two other men, demanding of his around-the-clock care and likely rarely seeing someone in female form.

In just one day, these men are outnumbered by women and these are no ordinary women, least of all Varla.

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