When it comes to the work of auteur Russ Meyer, where does one begin? He’s a man know for his love of female anatomy. He’s inspired countless filmmakers, including the likes of John Waters, who once proclaimed that Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is ‘the best movie ever made’ and ‘is possibly better than any other film that will be made in the future’ and I’d honestly agree, as it’s a riot. The tricky thing when it comes to Meyer’s films is getting a hold of them. 

When Meyer passed away in the early 2000s, his estate gained access to all of his films and outside of a few exceptions, have been extremely careful with licensing out his work. We’ve received an old Arrow Video DVD boxset and some boutique releases of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (which is owned by 20th Century Fox, who’s catalogue is now owned by Disney. Hilarious!) but that’s about it. Somehow, the guys over at Severin were able to land not only one, but three of Meyer’s films for release on Blu-ray and 4K UHD Blu-ray and they’re all part of the Vixen trilogy. They’re not connected by narrative, but more so in the content in the films. 

In this review, I’ll be covering all three titles and my thoughts on each, as well as the releases themselves. So if you’re curious on the transfer quality and bonus features, stick around until the latter half of the review for all of the details on those. So, without further ado, let’s get into the first film, aptly titled Vixen!

Vixen!

Director: Russ Meyer
Screenplay: Russ Meyer
Starring: Erica Gavin
Country: United States
Running Time: 70 min
Year: 1968

After making a series of drive-in hits with his early films Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, Lorna and Mondo Topless, Meyer decided to unleash Vixen! onto the American public and it was quite the controversial picture in its day. Causing a huge stir in Cincinnati, Ohio for its racy content, Meyer got into some trouble with the law due to Charles Keating and his group Citizens for Decent Literature. It’s notable for being the first film to receive the X rating by the MPAA for its sexual content.

The film follows the titular Vixen (played by Erica Gavin) who really wants to have sex with everybody in her sight. Whether it’s a tourist, somebody’s husband or even her brother, Vixen wants to sleep with them. The only person she doesn’t want to sleep with is Niles, a Black man who she’s constantly hurling racial insults at for seemingly no reason. Despite her being the protagonist of the film, she exhibits barely any likeable qualities and it feels entirely intentional. 

The great thing about Vixen! is how satirical everything in it feels. Meyer films had the selling factor of nudity, but adding sex scenes into the picture brought in an entirely new crowd and what does end up doing? Intercutting ludicrous sex sequences with conversations about race relations in the mid 60s. My favourite scene in the entire picture is when Vixen is engaged in intercourse with a man and the film cuts back between Niles and an Irish man who are discussing race and people with prejudiced beliefs. It’s an absolutely bonkers scene that shouldn’t work, but it does. 

The film looks absolutely fantastic too, with lucious cinematography filmed by Meyer himself, making what would otherwise be a sleazy sex film into an artistic sleazy sex film. Great outdoors photography, some wild shots involving fish and bedposts and a solid score to boot, Vixen! somehow manages to feel strangely classy despite the excessive sexual content. Running for only 70 minutes, it keeps up the pace well and never gets boring. I didn’t expect to come out of one of the sleazier Meyer films saying “that was really compelling” but it’s exactly how I felt about it. One of the biggest surprises in recent memory for me.

Film:  

Supervixens

Director: Russ Meyer
Screenplay: Russ Meyer
Starring: Charles Pitt, Charles Napier, Haji, Christy Hartburg, Colleen Brennann and Shari Eubank
Country: United States
Running Time: 105 min
Year: 1975

After Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Meyers had a deal to make films for 20th Century Fox and found himself frustrated creatively by the restrictions they imposed on his work. He made films outside of his wheelhouse, including blaxploitation flick Black Snack and legal drama The Seven Minutes but without being able to appreciate large breasts in his work, were they really Russ Meyer films? 

To make up for the absence of his artistic trademark, he decided to make his first post-Fox film Supervixens, an absolutely bonkers film which he promised would shock the audience every ten minutes with ‘a new chick every ten minutes who’s more outrageously constructed than the next’ and he sure did deliver on that. 

Supervixens is nuts from the very first moment, where it follows Clint (Charles Pitts), who’s married to SuperAngel (played by Shari Eubank). He stops off at a gas station and is approached by SuperVixen (also played by Shari Eubank) who wants to have sex with him. But here’s the thing, Clint doesn’t really enjoy having sex with people. In fact, throughout the entire picture, he finds himself in increasingly ridiculous situations where women can’t get enough of him. It’s full of the same satirical nature as many of other Meyer pictures, but feels so gonzo that it actually started to wear on me a little after a while. 

Like Vixen!, the film is gorgeously shot by Meyer (who also wrote, edited and produced) and captures California and Arizona incredibly. For those interested in some of Meyer’s classic nudity and sexual content, you’ll find yourself delighted by the hilarious sex scenes which are intercut with some wild visuals. The drill, the chicken and the cliff were particular favourites of mine. 

One scene in particular, involving Charles Napier as a deranged cop caught me off guard and might be the most violent thing I’ve seen in a Meyer picture. I won’t spoil it for those interested, but you’d think it was out of some bizarre giallo/slasher riff from an insanely misogynistic guy. It feels quite out of place in a film that’s otherwise light-hearted and silly throughout, but it made me curious to see what a fully-fledged horror picture from Meyer would have been like. 

While I didn’t love Supervixens as much as Vixen!, there’s no denying that it’s the more accessible of the bunch. It’s campier, it’s hornier and it’s longer (which might be to its detriment) and was a return to form for Meyer’s die-hard fans who might have been disappointed by his period working with Fox. Another great time!

Film:  

Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens 

Director: Russ Meyer
Screenplay: Russ Meyer and Roger Ebert
Starring: Kitten Natividad, Anne Marie, June Mack, Stuart Lancaster and Michael Finn.
Country: United States
Running Time: 93 min
Year: 1979

After the huge success of Supervixens, Meyer decided to make one final film in his loosely connected trilogy of sexploitation features and this time, enlisted the help of a regular collaborator, film critic Roger Ebert. For those unfamiliar, Ebert co-wrote Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and assisted with the screenplay for Up! so this didn’t come as a huge surprise from me but what it resulted in would end up being Meyer’s final narrative feature.

Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens is
 pretty bad. I need to say that off the bat, because it’s such a huge downgrade from those last two films that it’s shocking. The satirical elements that feature in the other Vixen films are present and the sex and nudity is plentiful, but it feels so much more gratuitous, way less artful and comes across as the bad type of sleaze. 

Most of the film’s punchlines revolve around sexual assault, poorly aged homophobia and sometimes, unfortunately, a combination of the two. It feels more like a series of elongated sketches than something with a coherent narrative, and while it really pushes the limits for the type of content you’d expect in a film of this nature (particularly from Meyer), I found the entire experience to be in incredibly poor taste. 

Some might say “what did you expect from a Russ Meyer film?” but I’d argue that his other work never feels hateful or exploitative, and from the sounds of those who worked with him, he was fun to work with. Maybe it’s Ebert’s screenplay that brings the whole thing down, given that the two Vixen films before this work far more as both satires and sex comedies. 

I will say, as expected from Meyer, the film looks really good on a technical level. Tons of vibrancy in each shot, a scene in a dentist’s office has some gorgeous lighting and it feels like the most extravagant Meyer film I’ve seen. I wish I cared for the film outside of the technical elements but it felt like such a chore to sit through and despite a runtime of 90 minutes, it feels like the longest of the bunch. 

As previously mentioned, it’s the last feature film Meyer ever made, which is a disappointing way to go out after creating so many other classic cult films over the years. Hardcore Meyer fans might get a kick out of this one but it’s the only real dud in the trilogy for me.

Film:  

All three films in Russ Meyer’s Vixen trilogy receive standalone releases from Severin Films on 4K UHD and Blu-ray on 27th January. I viewed the 4K UHD discs for the films and the Blu-ray discs for the extras. Each of the films are sourced from new 4K restorations and they look absolutely stunning. I always find myself incredibly pleased by genre films when they hit 4K, because they end up impressing more with the image quality than most blockbusters, surprisingly. Given that they were all shot on film, the clarity is unbelievable and the new HDR colour grades for each film are top notch. The vibrancy with the greens of the grass and the red clothes on characters was a pleasure to watch. Audio wise, each film has an English 2.0 mono mix, with optional English subtitles. All of these sound solid and are sourced from the original mixes, which serves each of the three films well. On an A/V level, these are some of the most impressive transfers I’ve seen from Severin and if more Russ Meyer films make the jump to 4K, they’re the label I’d like to see cover them. Top work from the guys over at Severin. Each release also includes a slipcover with the 4K UHD and Blu-ray combo pack, but I wasn’t provided with the retail releases so I’m unable to comment on those. The following extras are included:

Vixen 

  • 1981 Censor Prologue (Theatrical Re-Release)
  • Archival Audio Commentary With Co-Writer/Producer/Cinematographer/Co-Editor/Director Russ Meyer
  • Audio Commentary With Actress Erica Gavin
  • Woman… Or Animal? – Interviews With Actors Erica Gavin And Harrison Page
  • David Del Valle’s The Sinister Image With Guests Russ Meyer And Yvette Vickers
  • Entertainment… Or Obscenity? – Marc Edward Heuck On The Film’s Historic Cincinnati Censorship Battles
  • Trailer

Supervixens 

  • Archival Audio Commentary With Writer/Cinematographer/Editor/Producer/Director Russ Meyer
  • Russ Meyer Versus The Porn-Busters – Mike Carroll Interview With Russ Meyer
  • The Return Of Harry Sledge – Interview With Actor Charles Napier
  • The Incredibly Strange Film Show Season 1, Episode 5: Russ Meyer
  • Trailer
  • TV Spot

Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens 

  • Archival Audio Commentary With Co-Writer/Producer/Cinematographer/Editor/Director Russ Meyer
  • The Latin BrĂŒnhilde – Interview With Actress Kitten Natividad
  • Talk It Over – Ellen Adelstein Interviews Russ Meyer For Her Tucson Talk Show In 1979
  • Still Talking It Over – New Interview With Ellen Adelstein
  • Trailer

 

Each film features an archival audio commentary with the man behind the trilogy himself, Russ Meyer, all recorded back in 1997. For Vixen!, Meyer talks about how it’s the most sensual film thanks to the lead performance and how it was the big one for his career, setting his future work in motion. It’s a decent track, although it’d be nice to have heard him paired with a cast member so he had someone to bounce off. For Supervixens, Meyer discusses the casting process, how it ruined his marriage and more. It’s a dry listen and probably the weakest track out of the three, which is ironic given how gonzo the film itself is. And finally, for Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens, Meyer talks about how this was the most extreme film he ever made, and similarly to the prior tracks, recounts the production as you’d expect. In the opening minute, he talks about having sex with the lead actress. It’s full of wild stories and an improvement over the track for Supervixens. All in all, these are decent tracks that are recommended for the most die-hard Meyer fans.

Additionally, there’s an audio commentary on Vixen with actor Erica Gavin recorded in 2024, exclusively for this release. Hosted by Severin’s David Gregory, the commentary is a delightful time that highlights the film’s notoriety in Ohio, the production, Meyer’s hands-on approach to almost everything in his films and more. It’s a great commentary, my favourite by far. 

The 1981 Censor Prologue from Vixen’s theatrical re-release is excellent, bashing those who attempted to censor and ban Meyer’s work in a well-written and hilarious manner. It runs for a minute. 

Woman… Or Animal? is a 20 minute compilation of interviews with Erica Gavin And Harrison Page, ported over from an old Arrow/Blue Underground DVD release. Both starred in Vixen and the pair both talk about their times working with Russ Meyer, being honest and hilarious throughout. There’s an insane story about how one of the actors in the film treated Meyer to “oral pleasure” while he was sleeping once, which feels on brand for one of his pictures. A fun watch with some wild anecdotes.

An episode of David Del Valle’s 1987 show The Sinister Image is included with Meyer and actor Yvette Vickers. It runs for 21 minutes and opens with Meyer calling World War II the best time of his life, as well as calling it the last good war. He discusses Charles Keating, who gets an extra dedicated to him later on the Vixen release. It’s a decent interview but I found it a tad dry compared to some of the other extras on these releases. 

Entertainment… Or Obscenity? is a fun 13 minute piece on Vixen’s battles with censorship in Cincinnati, hosted by Marc Edward Heuck. He talks about Charles Keating’s CDL (Citizens for Decent Literature) and their battle to remove Vixen from theatres in Ohio. It’s an energetic and insightful extra that encapsulates the controversial nature of Meyer’s work in a way that he’d be proud of.

Russ Meyer Versus The Porn-Busters is an 24 minute archival interview with Meyer, who’s interviewed by Mike Carroll about the troubles he encounter while making his films and how certain authorities and people in power attempted to censor and hide his films. Meyer’s well spoken and highlights the satirical elements of his film, when most of his critics would refer to them as pornography. He also discussed censorship and how he objects to it with his films. It’s a great extra that dives into a fascinating subject matter. Worth a watch! Also, the extra opens with a warning about the video quality, although I found it looked better than some extras on other releases that don’t include a quality warning. 

The Return Of Harry Sledge is a 19 minute archival interview with Charles Napier, who played Harry Sledge in Supervixens. Napier went on to star in The Silence of the Lambs, the Austin Powers films and The Blues Brothers so hearing how he met Meyer early on in his acting career was delightful. He offers a great impression of Russ and dives into his experiences during the shoot of Supervixens. A fun watch. 

An episode of the Jonathan Ross series The Incredibly Strange Film Show is included and this might be my favourite extra on the disc. For those unfamiliar, it’s a classic British series where Ross would pick a genre filmmaker and dive into their work, interviewing them and their collaborators. There’s an incredible moment with Roger Ebert that has to be seen to be believed. Meyer is honest about how he got aroused making his films and even talks about how he tried to stop his actors having sex during his productions to make them more aroused, which is nuts. The section on Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is brilliant and hearing Tura Satana recount her experiences was fun too. Overall, it’s a great episode and a fantastic inclusion. It runs for around 40 minutes. 

The Latin BrĂŒnhildeid is an archival interview with actor Kitten Natividad that runs for 17 minutes. She talks about how she always wanted to be a go-go dancer but didn’t have large breasts, so as she says, she bought some. She discusses her first meeting with Russ, where he was eating a steak with broccoli, which is as hilarious as it sounds. There’s also a wild story about faking an orgasm on the set for Up! which I couldn’t believe. Another great interview.

An interview from the Ellen Adelstein talk show Talk It Over in 1979 for the release of Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens. It runs for 23 minutes and it’s another fascinating piece with Meyer. He talks about his branding as sexist and how he objects to that, his obsession with breasts and plans for a fourth entry into the Vixen trilogy. It’s easily the most entertaining interview with Meyer and causes host Adelstein to crack up multiple times when he discusses how big breasts turn him on. This should be up there in the pantheon of bizarre talk show interviews. 

Still Talking It Over is a brand new interview with Ellen Adelstein, recorded exclusively for this release. It follows up on the prior interview included and runs for 7 minutes. The fact that Severin reached out to Adelstein in general is incredible. I found it incredibly interesting listening to her recount how her show touched on issues that were considered taboo at the times, such as a gay man who came out on her show. My favourite section was how she discusses the 30 second clip of Ultra-Vixens that Meyer provided and he told them to cut it at 29 seconds, because the next second featured a frame of a penis. It’s an absolutely hilarious story that I won’t spoil. A fantastic watch. 

A trailer for each film is included, with an additional TV spot for Supervixens. 

Severin’s releases for these sleazy Russ Meyer features are excellent, offering fantastic video and audio quality and a superb arrangement of bonus features to boot. The films won’t be for everyone, and the content might border on softcore pornography for most, but if you’re on Meyer’s wavelength, they’re (mostly) a hoot and there’s never been a better way to experience them. Highly recommended.

Disc/Packaging:  

Where to watch Vixen
Russ Meyer's Vixen Trilogy - Severin Films
Vixen
Supervixens
Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens
Disc/Packaging
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