Russ Meyer was a total badass. There’s simply no other way to put it and his films, everything from Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! to Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, stands as a testimony for his pioneering work in cinematography and his DIY attitude.
And now, thanks to an agreement between Severin Films, Janice Cowart and The Russ Meyer Trust, three of his signature films, Vixen, Supervixens and Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens, have arrived on home video for the first time in decades. These independent movies, available in 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD, mark the first remastering of Meyer’s films from the original camera negatives since the early 1980s, and each feature both new and archival special features curated exclusively for Severin.
Bosomania is alive and well!
Filmed in Blythe, California and parts of Arizona and featuring Charles Napier as a sick and twisted police officer, Supervixens was Meyer’s biggest commercial success since Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and, with a big bosomed cast which includes Uschi Digard,Haji, Shari Eubank (in a dual role), and Christy Hartburg, it is easy to see why. This sex comedy is loaded with surrealism, epic edits, and a death scene in a bathtub which is still a damned harrowing experience to sit through.
Charles Pitts is Clint Ramsey, a gas station attendant for a neo-nazi led establishment, Martin Bormann's Super Service, knee-deep in the desert. It is not an ideal job, nor is it an ideal place, but Ramsey finds it tolerable thanks to all the hot women who want his ass.
And they are nonstop. It’s a revolving door in his pants and, when his jealous girlfriend (Eubank) accuses him of cheating, he storms out of the house after one argument and heads to the local bar. Little does he know the wild turn that his life is going to take thanks to the arrival of the psychotic Harry Sledge (Napier), the cop who responds to SuperAngel’s call. She, feeling betrayed by Ramsey, seduces Sledge but things turn violent when he can’t perform and she starts to ridicule him. 
Now, thanks to the brutal murder of his girlfriend, Ramsey is wanted for murder and hitches a ride to anywhere but here and runs into many weird and wacky people as he sets out to find an oasis of sorts out in the desert, far away from Sledge and his viscousness.
Unfortunately, his attempts at peace are misguided and usually involve big-breasted women. This puts him on an unavoidable crash course toward Sledge, who wants him dead.
Both funny and twisted, Supervixens is a cult classic when it comes to Meyer’s output and, thanks to this modern viewing, the independent film - wild to its last frame - doesn’t disappoint. It’s super silly and super fun and, obviously, there are BIG moments where Meyer’s constantly moving camera and quick edits are pure forward-thinking fuel for future filmmakers to use and abuse.
The film, operating as a sister sequel to the original Vixens, is largely appreciated by those who follow the auteur’s work and features another well-built woman almost every 10-minutes of its running time. Oh, it’s definitely outrageous - complete with a german farm girl who has sex with her much older man everywhere on the farm while Pitts does all the work - but the film takes its Horatio Algier-meets-Al Capp influences and winks its way toward its eventual ending as Ramsey finds himself in several sexually-charged and far-out situations with all sorts of psychopaths in his journey through the desert.
It’s all wink-wink and nudge-nudge until you just can’t help but laugh at the farce, which is why Supervixens works so well. It is in good hands with Severin Films.
Home Video Distributor: Severin
Available on Blu-ray - January 28, 2025
Screen Formats: 1.85:1
Subtitles: English SDH
Audio: English: Mono
Discs: Blu-ray Disc; two-disc set
Region Encoding: Locked to Region A
Following the ‘serious’ features THE SEVEN MINUTES and BLACK SNAKE, this 1975 return to form written, photographed, edited, produced and directed by Russ Meyer remains perhaps his most over-the-top and savagely entertaining epic of all: When a hot-blooded wife (Shari Eubank) and a psychotic cop (a startling performance by Charles Napier of THE BLUES BROTHERS fame) come together, it will ignite a cross-country odyssey of violence, vengeance and relentless coitus. John Lazar (BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS), Uschi Digard (BENEATH THE VALLEY OF THE ULTRAVIXENS) and Haji (FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL!) co-star in Russ’ “super-sexy live-action Road Runner cartoon” (Empire), now 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.
Video
Scanned from the original camera negative, the 4K restoration is nothing less than breathtaking. Mined from a new master which involved restoring the original 35mm camera negative, the results are pretty stunning and the new color grading is spot-on, too. Black levels are bold, colors pop - with reds, greens, and browns getting the edge over other colors - and everything has more depth than previously seen. It is a damn fine job, resulting in a movie that looks brand-new again. There is one nighttime sequence which looks a bit too soft for its own good. That being said, this release is a solid one which ought to please any fan of cult cinema.
Audio
The English Mono soundtrack is perfectly acceptable on this newly minted 4K transfer. The dialogue is up front and never buried in the mix.
Supplements:
Commentary:
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See Special Features for the details.
Special Features:
There are three hours of supplemental items to dig through with this release.
Disc 1: 4K UHD
- Archival Audio Commentary With Writer/Cinematographer/Editor/Producer/Director Russ Meyer
- Trailer
Disc 2: Blu-ray
- 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
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Composite Blu-ray Grade
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MPAA Rating: Unrated.
Runtime: 106 mins
Director: Russ Meyer
Writer: Russ Meyer
Cast: Charles Pitt; Shari Eubank; Charles Napier
Genre: Comedy | Thriller
Tagline: Feast on it
Memorable Movie Quote: "You know, I came in the shower this morning without touching myself?"
Theatrical Distributor: RM Films International
Official Site: https://severinfilms.com/products/russ-meyers-supervixens-2-disc-4k-uhd-w-slipcover
Release Date: April 2, 1975
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: January 28, 2025
Synopsis: Clint Ramsey must quit his job at Martin Bormann's gas station and flee after his wife is killed by psychopathic cop Harry Sledge, who tries to pin the murder on him.
