Supervixens arrived just as the "porno chic" era (e.g., Deep Throat , 1972) was giving way to mainstream studio soft-core. Meyer refused to go hardcore. Instead, he pushed the limits of the R rating into a zone that doesn't exist today—what critic Glenn Erickson called "a sexual funhouse mirror of America." The film’s desert landscapes, garish colors, and thumping rock soundtrack (by William Loose) feel like a fever dream of the mid-70s: post-Watergate, pre-AIDS, where the only sin was boredom.

Criterion has a rotating collection of "Pre-Code and Grindhouse" cinema. Every October, they run a "Meyer Madness" marathon. While The Sex Machine is too obscure for the main queue, the uncut Supervixens (containing the "machine" sequence) is available.

Supervixens (or whatever "The Sex Machine" refers to) is not "good" by conventional cinematic standards. It is poorly acted, chaotically edited, and its politics are impossible to pin down. But as a time capsule of American id —a place where sex, violence, and gasoline mix into a toxic, hilarious, and strangely vital cocktail—it is unmatched. Russ Meyer made machines, all right. Machines that run on pure, uncut id.