Cover Story (1993) (This is part of our new section Not so Basic Instincts: The Best in Sex Thrillers by Amanda By Night.)
Gregg Smith, where are you?
Gregg was the writer/producer/editor/director of Cover Story, an early 90s erotic thriller that spun a convoluted yet entertaining tale of a reporter and his obsession with a dead girl. It’s bit like the old Dana Andrew’s movie Laura, only with boobies. Also, there’s rap-music galore (Ram Luv, I adore you!), gay gangsters, Tuesday Knight (Nightmare on Elm Street 4) in the WORST wig in the history of wigs (Take that Loni Anderson!) and Robert Forster as the guy who couldn’t generate an emotion if you ate his kid in front of him (and yes, he’s STILL gorgeous!).
William Wallace is Matt, the guy who sometimes wears open vests without shirts. One night, his girlfriend Allison (Marisa Cody) gives him some nookie and then blows off her head. A year later Matt finally moves into a new place, determined to get back to work and back to living. He moves into the apartment of a dead girl named Reen (Tuesday Knight) and becomes obsessed with learning about her after the landlord gives him a videotape where she’s all donned in mime makeup and goes on and on about how turned on she gets looking at herself. Oh-Kay. Anyway, Matt also meets frumpy law student Tracy (Tuesday again) whom he likes but thinks is uh, err, frumpy (and he’s right). I mean, Reen wore MIME makeup, which is way hotter. While Matt attempts to learn about Reen and how she ended up all dead-like, these gay Mafioso types keep harassing him and breaking into his apartment and pulling guns on him and stuff. Apparently Reen left something behind and these guys are determined to get it. And it’s not the clap!
Cover Story is a lot of fun. Maybe some of the plot devices are tired, but it’s got just enough quirks to make it feel a little fresher.
And Ram Luv! Not sure how this guy ended up in the movie, but he plays an ex-crack dealer who is on the verge of rap stardom. He keeps his mostly white audiences in rapture by talking about finding a good woman, before he sings about his Bad Attitude (one of the lines goes “I’ve got a bad attitude, they call me Mr. Bad Attitude”!). He kind of takes Matt through the seedy underbelly of city life, but is a character that definitely wasn’t needed. Thank god he signed with Wiz-a-tron Records (I’m not kidding, that’s a REAL record company!)…
The leader of the effeminate gang is Julian (Leland Orser, who’s gone onto a pretty nice career) and he’s a lot of fun too. He hangs around this uber-buff gay man named Steven (Steve Parrish) who is just the right amount of butch and bitch to make a fairly convincing heavy.
Not a ton of sex, very little sleaze, with just a touch of violence and yet, still a good movie. Not an easy feat to pull off! I’m assuming Gregg Smith is a pseudonym. On IMDb, Cover Story is his only credit, but c’mon, this kind of a genius mind couldn’t have only made ONE film. I’m not that stupid.
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