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The husband with fishing rod in hand pays no mind to the wife in her black bikini, thus the Russ Meyer equation (sand, engines, cleavage) swiftly stated. Japing punks on wheels en route to Vegas, the "Cajun witch" on her way to Los Angeles, in the middle the vengeful veterinarian. The marauding bikers are the soldier back from Vietnam scrambled (Steve Oliver), the amorous wiseguy (Joseph Cellini), and the weasel with ear glued to the transistor radio (Timothy Scott). The horse doctor (Alex Rocco) is away at the stud farm resisting the advances of the statuesque blonde (Sharon Lee) when the trio checks in on his wife (Holle K. Winters), the low-angled camera on the bungalow lends an air of Touch of Evil to the assault. (As the sheriff, Meyer has warm words for the distraught protagonist in the back of the ambulance: "Nothin' happened to her that a woman ain't built fer.") The dead end is an abandoned pit named The Cauldron, along the way the gal with a past (Haji) joins the avenger. "You wanted a bedtime story! What didja expect, Fanny Hill?" A male variant of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, of the utmost starkness in its undercutting of The Wild One's leather-jacketed mythos. Plenty of remarkable moments of brutality and sex transmuted and braided, including a wild interlude of snakes and knives which culminates with a money-shot of spit and blood. Still fighting commies in his mind, the chief bruiser fancies himself Achilles and lords over the rocky wasteland, a bundle of dynamite held between the knees brings him down. "When the war is over, we will all enlist again..." A certain kinship with Saura's La Caza will be observed. With Coleman Francis, Steve Masters, Fred Owens, and Arshalouis Aivazian. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |