Today's director for our Female Filmmakers series is seriously cool. Why? Because she loves boobs and sex on film. She began her career directing as many nude scenes as possible. Let's celebrate the career of the awesome Katt Shea!
Katt Shea originally hails from Detroit where she directed plays in her backyard as a child. The self-described misfit was always drawn to directing stories for audiences to see. She briefly worked as a teacher to blind children when she graduated high school, but she had bigger dreams. At 19, she high-tailed it for Hollywood where she worked as a model and an actress and took classes at UCLA to learn some filmmaking basics.
I should mention that Katt did a considerable amount of skinteresting work as an actress. She did have small roles in major films like Scarface and Psycho II (where she sat on a toilet bottomless, so you can actually see her bush), but her roles in low-level movies showcased the young lady's loveliest assets. She was topless in My Tutor and RSVP to name a few of her early 80s exploits.
In 1987, Katt directed the film Stripped to Kill which told the world exactly who she was. This film was bold for a first-time director - and for a female director, too! This sexy detective thriller was somewhat ahead of its time as erotic thrillers would become all the rage in just a few years. In this film, a narcotics cop moonlights at a strip club.
She should be under arrest for showing us her naughty bits! She is going undercover because it appears that a homicidal maniac is stalking and killing the strippers like prey. The exotic dancers have to band together for safety and the show must go on, so they continue to strip while the cop strips away the clues to figure out exactly who the killer is.
In 1990, she directed Streets starring Christina Applegate. In this flick, the young Applegate shows that she is grown up and ready to get sexy. The former Kelly Bundy has pokies galore in her loose-fitting T-shirts and shorts. She also takes it all off for a makeout scene in which her lover cups her cups. Her big boobs barely fit in that guy's lucky palms!
This film has a lot of the same themes as Stripped to Kill: murder, a dirty cop, sex work, and beautiful women. Katt Shea really knows how to titillate her audiences!
She is the director of the original Poison Ivy film which she worked on with her then-husband. 1992's Poison Ivy starred Drew Barrymore and it caused a huge stir. It was one of Barrymore's first films after she became emancipated from her mother (but she was still legally underage). It premiered at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City. That means that this film was art! Since then, the MoMA has screened a retrospective of her films and that same retrospective has been repeated. People love and respect Katt Shea in the art world and abroad!
Poison Ivy's influence cannot be understated. The film went on to spawn three sequels and they starred a lot of young, beautiful talent such as Alyssa Milano, Miriam McDonald, and Jaime Pressly.
In 1996, she tried her hand at science fiction for the very first (and last) time. Roger Corman produced her made-for-TV movie called Last Exit to Earth. In this film, women have taken over Earth and they have created a society where rage and aggression no longer exist. Without aggression, however, there is no sex. This means that human beings are not procreating!
This sex fantasy features a mostly female cast with gorgeous bodies. That being said, Amy Hathaway is the only one who goes nude. She shows off her sleek, porcelain skin, and her smooth mams in a single nude scene. One look at Amy Hathaway should be enough to incite Earth's remaining men to procreate.
Her bold film The Rage: Carrie 2 was a box office hit - debuting at #2 at the box office on opening weekend. There was no nudity in the film, but it was a hit and it was a departure from her sex-filled films so far. It proved that Katt Shea had range and she had mainstream appeal even when she didn't put breasts front and center.
She's come a long way from her smutty beginnings. In fact, Katt Shea is currently making family-friendly material and material targeted toward young girls. That being said, she doesn't regret any of her work. In fact, she's proud of her career.
She has said of her filmography: "I like every single film I've ever made -- I really do. Other people call them exploitation films, but to me what I was doing was never exploitative. I always had a strong point of view about my intention; it was never just to make money or to titillate or to horrify. I always had my purpose and I made those movies myself. I can't imagine sitting around and trying to piece together elements that I think other people want to see. That would be so boring!"
