TURA! (2025) Documentary Review
Some documentaries whisper their subjects' stories. Others shout them from the rooftops. And then there's "TURA!"—a film that kicks down the door, struts in wearing black leather, and dares you to look away from one of cinema's most gloriously uncompromising figures.
Director Cody Jarrett (who directed Tura Satana herself in the 2009 film “Sugar Boxx”) has crafted something that feels less like traditional documentary filmmaking and more like an archaeological dig through the grittier corners of American entertainment history. With Margaret Cho's perfectly pitched narration guiding us through the labyrinth, we're introduced to Tura Satana—a tough-talking femme fatale who didn't just break stereotypes, she grabbed them by the throat and threw them off a cliff.
The genius of Jarrett's approach lies in how he mirrors his subject's own philosophy: no down-playing, no apologetic explanations, just raw truth served with a side of "deal with it." When the film opens with the horrific details of Satana's childhood assault, it's not exploitation; it's establishing the foundational trauma that would forge one of cinema's most iconic revenge fantasies into flesh and blood.
What emerges is a portrait that's simultaneously heartbreaking and empowering. Satana's transformation from a 10-year-old gang-rape victim to the leather-clad badass in "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" reads like the origin story of a superhero—that is, if superheroes were forged in burlesque clubs and driven by a very specific kind of righteous fury.
The talking-heads roster reads like a who's who of counterculture royalty: John Waters brings his trademark irreverent wisdom, while Dita Von Teese offers insights that feel both scholarly and deeply personal. Friend and costar (from “Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens”) Kitten Natividad provides personal insight and a level-headed overview of the business. But it's the inclusion of Pamela Des Barres—legendary groupie chronicler—that adds even more emotional depth. Des Barres' connection with Satana transcended mere professional admiration; they bonded over their mutual worship at the altar of Elvis Presley and their shared commitment to female independence and personal sexual freedom. Des Barres brings both insider knowledge and genuine affection to her recollections, painting Satana as a kindred spirit in the ongoing war for women's autonomy in entertainment.
It's Satana's own daughters, however, who provide the film's most poignant moments, painting their mother as simultaneously legendary and heartbreakingly human—the kind of woman who could intimidate Tony Curtis but struggled with the mundane realities of maternal domesticity. "She wasn't a 'Hey, let's bake cookies' kind of mom," Kalani and Jade note with the weary wisdom of children who grew up in the shadow of a force of nature. Not only that, they drop a couple of truth-bombs towards the end that feel like scripted plot twists.
Jarrett wisely positions Satana not just as a cult cinema curiosity, but as a prescient figure who weaponized her own fetishization decades before such concepts had academic terminology. She was doing intersectional feminism in go-go boots before anyone knew what to call it, claiming agency in an industry designed to strip it away.
The archival footage crackles with authentic grit. These aren't polished Hollywood behind-the-scenes clips, but raw Super-8 glimpses into a world where entertainment and survival intersected in dangerous ways. The candid photos of her with her children, her friends, and lovers—sans the polished cat-eyed dominatrix look—show off her considerable natural beauty.
Most impressively, "TURA!" manages to honor its subject without canonizing her. Satana emerges as wonderfully, messily human. She was a woman who could exact revenge on her childhood attackers (the film's most tantalizingly vague subplot) but couldn't quite master the art of avoiding controlling, chauvinistic men as her partners.
"TURA!" is that rare documentary that understands its subject on a cellular level. It's a love letter to feminine rage, a meditation on survival, and a reminder that the most potent and useful acts of rebellion happen in black leather on a drive-in movie screen. Tura Satana may have been exploitation cinema's queen, but this film proves she was so much more: she was America's reckoning with its own contradictions, served up with a knowing smirk and zero apologies.
= = = S.L. Wilson
S.L. Wilson nails it! We're thrilled by their review of TURA! soon to be screened in theaters in the USA! Go to turamovie.com for info on social media.
