Wildcat Women Review

Distributor: Asterix Home Video Edition Details: Standard DVD Movie Specs: Genres: Golden Age Classic, Feature Film, Softcore, Action Also known as: Black Lolita, Bad Lolita Run Time: 78 minutes Rated: not Release Year: 1975 Director: Stephen Gibson Written by: Mike Brown, Stephen Gibson Cast: Yolanda Love, Ed Cheatwood (as Wm “Ed” Cheatwood), Susan Ayers, Joey Ginza, Jim Coffman, David Duran, Anthony Mannino, Jefferson Richard (as Jeff Richard), Larry Ellis, Joanne Bruno (as Joan Bruno), Judy Williams, Eddie Clay, Zenobia Wittacre, Joe Thompson, Curtis Troupe, Walt Pitts, Sandi Carey, Christine De Shaffer, B.B. Hinds, William Margold, Serena Release Specs: Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono Subtitles: none Video: Full Frame, 1.33:1 Video Format: NTSC Format: DVD Regional Code (for DVD/Blu-ray): 0 (All) Number of discs: 1

Wildcat Women is a goofy exploitation film to come out of the 70s complete with the stereotypical genre music. In Wildcat Women, lounge singer Lolita's (Yolanda Love) uncle is killed by Soyamatama Moto “Buddha” (Joey Ginza) and his gang. She bands together with two other women and the three try to extract revenge against Buddha by taking down his enterprises.

At no time is Wildcat Women a great film and it struggles with its identity. The film wants to be a revenge and vengeance film but a subplot contains a love story between Lolita and Cleon (Ed Cheatwood), which gets in the way of the vengeance arc in the film and feels out of place. Then to add into the mix, the film tries to add in all the softcore sex scenes it can manage. Honestly the softcore sex scenes and the vengeance plot could have worked well but all three makes the film feel like it is all over the map.

Wildcat Women was shot in the Deep Vision 3D process and the film never fails to remind you that it was intended to be a 3D film. Unlike other films by Stephen Gibson, the glaring constant announcement that this film is a 3D movie works against the film. The fight scenes are staged to be in your face and objects are hurled at the camera, just to do so. The end result are some very awkward and unrealistic looking scenes that were created just for the 3D effect. The film actually looks best when it seems to forget that it is a 3D film and just tries to tell the story.

While the cast looks good and the softcore footage usually looks good, there is some footage edited in which doesn't seem to fit with the sex scene at all, sometimes even featuring a different woman and not in a position that matches what is going on within the scene at the time, seemingly just to throw boobs at you in 3D. I have no problem at all with 3D boobs, but the footage detracts from the scenes since it doesn't match at all.

Director Stephen Gibson did a series of Deep Vision 3D films back in the seventies and early eighties, Blonde Emmanuelle, The Playmates, Hard Candy, and Wildcat Women. He recently made another Hackin' Jack vs. the Chainsaw Chick, which has finished the festival circuit and will be going to the theatrical circuit soon.

Gibson explains Deep Vision 3D, “The Deep vision 3D process was patented (4295153) and was the only color anaglyph 3D at the time. It was developed for the theatrical market because it could play in any theatre or drive-in without a special polaroid installation which is commonplace today. 'No installation' made the process very unique at the time.”

“The films were shot with a single 35mm motion picture camera using the Deep Vision lens assembly on the front,” Gibson continues. “The process locked the 3D image on to a single strip of film and virtually eliminated any Left and Right eye sync problems; a serious issue with typical two strip systems.”

According to Gibson, due to how the process works there are only 3D versions of the film and no “flat” versions.

Wildcat Women was shot in DeepVision 3D, which is a form of anaglyphic 3D (the red and blue glasses). The effect doesn't work very well on the version included and mostly just gives the viewer a terrible headache with very little actual 3D effects. Asterix has included two pairs of paper anaglyphic 3D glasses with the release.

There were three versions released for Wildcat Women, the R-rated cut, the soft-X cable cut, and a toned down version of the R-rated cut dubbed the “Pacific Drive-in Cut,” that was created for drive-in theaters that faced the road. This release contains only the soft-X cable cut also known as the unrated director's cut.

Wildcat Women is presented in the full screen aspect ratio of 1.33:1. The transfer appears to have come from a video master. The transfer suffers from a lot of issues. The picture contains artifacts, print damage, and grain. The picture suffers from a lack of definition and an extremely low quality overall picture at times. While some scenes look bright and vibrant, other scenes are incredibly dark and murky and suffer from washed out colors.

Wildcat Women is presented with an English Dolby Digital 2.0 monaural audio track. The audio track suffers from its own issues. At places some voices are lower than others causing some dialog to be hard to hear. Some places have distortion in the audio when there are high pitches. There is also a hiss present throughout most of the film.

Asterix has included a few extras for the release. There is the theatrical trailer for the film and a still gallery. A feature length commentary from Stephen Gibson would have been great along with a featurette on the Deep Vision 3D process and a featurette from William Margold talking about his participation with the film.

According to Gibson, there is a 3D Blu-ray forthcoming for this title, along with his other titles. Whether the Blu-ray will just contain just the soft-X cable cut or both the soft-X cable cut and the R-rated version is currently unknown. As of 2018, Stephen Gibson has confirmed that the Blu-rays are still coming; they have just been delayed due to work on Hackin' Jack vs. the Chainsaw Chick.

Wildcat Women is never a great film nor is it ever really a good film however it is far from being a horrible film and it does have its moments when it is incredibly fun to watch, however Stephen Gibson has made far better films. The release from Asterix is a mess with a horrible transfer and audio problems. Gibson has stated that the film is coming out on Blu-ray so there is no real need to seek out the old and problematic Asterix release.

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