“Faster Pussycat... Kill! Kill!” flopped upon its release but over the years, it’s gained a cult following. It even helped inspire Quentin Tarantino’s “Death Proof” segment in “Grindhouse”. I don’t really get the appeal of this film. I don’t get how it’s gone from being viewed as merely violent and smutty to being seen as some sort of feminist classic.

Varla (Tura Satana), Rose (Haji) and Billie (Lori Williams) are three go-go dancers that are out causing trouble while driving in the desert. One of them kills a guy after a dispute and so then they kidnap the man’s girlfriend. They soon learn of a local that has a large sum of cash hidden somewhere so they decide to try and steal it. However, they soon find this task won’t be easy.

The characters in this film are not particularly exciting. I suppose Varla is the most memorable of the trio. I get that these are meant to be tough women that won’t take any nonsense from men (or other women) but that doesn’t mean that actually have interesting personalities. There’s not enough action in the movie to justify such shallow characters. If the main characters are bad, the side characters that they encounter are even weaker.

This film was directed by Russ Meyer, who was known for smutty pictures including “Beyond The Valley of the Dolls” and “Supervixens”. I honestly was disappointed by “Faster Pussycat… Kill! Kill!” as the title is pretty funny. I thought there was going to be more car chasing and more action. There are just so many long stretches where nothing really happens. There isn’t even really any nudity so if you’re going into this just expecting to see something risqué, you’re going to be disappointed too. I do have an admiration for Tarantino for how he was able to extract elements from this and turn into something as entertaining as “Death Proof”.