Having rebounded financially with his first big independent hit of the 1970's, SuperVixens, filmmaker Russ Meyer continued the formula of exaggerated sex, huge bosoms, and gory violence all in vivid, splashy color with Up!, a film many including Meyer himself thought fell short of its predecessor. Of course, SuperVixens was also an extremely tough act to follow, and fans will find more of its cartoonish absurdity and extreme political incorrectness on display here in abundance. What really makes this worth a look is its cast anchored around the astonishing Raven De La Croix in her first role, delivering one of the wildest and witchiest heroines in the Meyer canon. The film also forms a kind of centerpiece to what could be considered an attempt by Meyer in his last three theatrical features (following by Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens) to push cinema to its breaking point with rapid-fire editing, ridiculous gags, and mythic-level female characters that no other mind could even attempt to create.

At a Bavarian-style castle, S&M devotee Adolph Schwartz (Schaaf), actually Hitler in hiding, spends his time in his dungeon enjoying the antics of multicultural dominatrixes and being dominated by local townsman Paul (A Very Natural Thing's McLane), who's in a mutually open, bisexual marriage to diner owner Alice (Wood). When Adolph is murdered by a killer in black gloves who drops a piranha in his bathtub, a naked Greek Chorus (Natividad) goes into overdrive filling us in on the possible suspects. Meanwhile the voluptuous Margo Winchester (De La Croix) rides into town and promptly kills a local who assaults her in the woods. The town sheriff, Homer (Bane), uses the situation to his advantage to get Margo into bed, but that's just the beginning as Alice and Margo are hurled through a variety of outrageous incidents on the way to a final, jaw-dropping showdown.

The one bona fide murder mystery in Meyer's filmography, Up! barely holds together as a whodunit but counts on the fact that you'll be so distracted by everything else you'll barely notice. Vixen composer William Loose returns here as co-composer for the energetic music score, and the always uninhibited Natividad is there mainly as an editing device to springboard from one vignette to the next. Adult film fans may be intrigued by the participation of the legendary Candy Samples (credited as Mary Gavin), but don't get too excited since it's basically a cameo and she never shows her face. After the insane opening sequence in Schwartz's lair, the film manages to equal it with two more pure Meyer concoctions -- a nude, knife-wielding resolution in a creek and, in a move clearly bound to provoke, a protracted bit involving dual attempted rape that turns into blood-spraying mayhem involving an axe and a chainsaw.

Like all of Meyer's major films, this one was issued directly by RM Films on VHS in the 1980s and appeared on the rental shelves of finer mom and pop stores for years. There was also a nice laserdisc double feature from Image Entertainment in 1999, paired up with Meyer's Cherry, Harry & Raquel (another film constructed heavily in the editing room). In the early '00s it joined its brethren on DVD taken from the same tape master, released in the U.S. by Meyer and from Arrow Video in the U.K. featuring a fun Raven De La Croix interview (18m3s) about how she was discovered and "Pussy Galore Night" (12m9s), a casual Q&A with Kitten Natividad. A handful of other DVDs turned up around the world as well, all from the same master which was looking pretty rough by that point. As with the rest of the Meyer catalog, it looked like that would be it until the miracle of a deal struck with Severin Films resulted in a glorious 2025 UHD and Blu-ray option (or a standalone Blu-ray) featuring a beautiful 4K scan of the original negative. As with other Meyer titles, this fixes the wonky framing we had before (which was cropped on the sides with a lot of open matte extra room) and looks infinitely more impressive here in every conceivable way. The detail also makes it even weirder that McLane (who tragically passed away in 1992) gets stuck with a ridiculous prosthetic phallus every time he drops trou, anticipating the trend we now have on numerous TV shows. The DTS-HD MA 2.0 English mono track (patched together from 35mm prints according to the restoration card) sounds fine throughout and comes with optional English SDH subtitles. a very engaging new commentary by Elizabeth Purchell dives into Meyer's very deliberate editing style, the fragmentation of the human body, the treatment of queer narrative elements, Meyer's completed and thwarted projects throughout the '70s, other contemporary sexploitation filmmakers, the lines of how sex could be portrayed at the time and the role of the X rating, the story behind the two original songs heard on the soundtrack, and the fascinating, sometimes confounding tones swirling around in this madhouse of a movie. On the Blu-ray only are the video interview with De La Croix from the Arrow disc and a radio spot.

SEVERIN FILMS (Blu-ray)

ARROW VIDEO (DVD)

Reviewed on April 14, 2025