Paula Barbieri. Wow. What a flashback. This pretty lady only made a few films, mostly erotic thrillers, and Night Eyes 4 was her last appearance. Don’t quote me or anything, but I’m pretty sure she used a body double in the sex scenes. She is also an underwhelming actress, so I wonder why anyone would hire her for this genre.
Oh wait, she was dating OJ Simpson circa the infamous murder of his ex-wife and an unsuspecting waiter who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I won’t go into details here because if you aren’t aware of the case, then you must have been living under a rock. I do remember Paula getting some coverage after the event based solely on her notorious taste in lovers. I read she split from Simpson the day of the murders, which you know probably pissed him off. She did end up reuniting and staying with OJ through the trial and they broke up shortly after his acquittal. I’m just glad she got out of there, otherwise who would have starred in Night Eyes 4? It just wouldn’t have been the same.
Continue reading ‘Not So Basic Instincts: Night Eyes 4: Fatal Passion’
By 1998 erotic thrillers were lucrative in the same way slashers were lucrative in the 80s. Only a few saw any kind of theatrical release, but as video stores tried to meet the supply and demand craze, lots of interesting movies popped up. It’s one of my favorite eras, and one of the most underappreciated, in the history of film. Sure it was a lot of boobs, some bullets and whatever other sensational things the filmmaker could think of, meaning it wasn’t exactly AFI material, but it was damn entertaining, and what more can you ask for on a Saturday night?
In retrospect, Tease is just that. A big ol’ Tease. Playing more like a Lifetime murder mystery than a sexy erotic thriller, there’s just enough T&A to push it more into late night Cinemax than early evening Lifetime. But when all is said and done, this movie just wants to take you to the brink, making you believe something is going to happen, only to pull back, kiss you on the cheek and say goodnight.
After veering briefly into Gregory Dark-land, I got to go back home again and see another in the always enjoyable Night Eyes series. Now I’m up to part three and like the two before it, I’m finding there’s a lot to be said about Andrew Stevens take on sleaze. Um, I mean erotica!
Last week, the makers behind what is sure to be one of this summer’s biggest hits, Terminator: Salvation, called upon a few journalists (yeah, that’s right, I’m a journalist – Nyah! Nyah!) for a gathering to view clips from the upcoming film. Salvation’s director, McG was in attendance (with a couple of his producers) and in-between the excerpts, the one-name maverick spun tales about the harrowing world of filmmaking and how this film came to be. He also made fun of his moniker, which was kind of awesome.
With rabid anticipation of the My Bloody Valentine remake (in 3D no less!), I thought I’d celebrate the history of Hollywood reconstruction. Love them or hate them, remakes are all the rage these days. Some of the choices make sense (The Fly, although you won’t find this movie on my list. Sorry Mr. Cronenberg!) while others just leave us scratching out heads (Psycho, anyone?) but there are actually quite a few worthy re-imaginings out there. They might not blow the original out of the water, but they make for a nice counterpart. Here is the short list of titles in a remake world gone wild.
Porn filmmaker Gregory Dark went semi-legit in the early 90s at the beginning of the erotic thriller craze. Even for the genre, his “softcore” work was pretty hardcore back then. Now it all seems a bit quaint – but just a bit. He could give Seduction Cinema a run for its money any day! Unlike Andrew Stevens, Dark (often working under the name Gregory Hippolyte as he did here) concentrated less on story and more on nudity. I’m sure most won’t find fault him for that way of thinking, but his films ended up a lot less entertaining for me. I know, I’m weird.
I know, I know. We’ve all been waiting for it… an erotic thriller about child molestation. Now what could be hotter than that? Strangely, Play Nice is just such a film in the subgenre dealing with that very unsavory topic… and somehow manages to make it entertaining.
Shannon Tweed was already a Playboy Playmate of the Year (1982) and had racked up an impressive list of acting credits as long as your arm when erotic thrillers came knocking on her door in the early 90s. And it was these films, including the sequel to the salacious flick Night Eyes that really put her on the map. She had already appeared in a handful of these types of movies before Night Eyes II, but there was just something so good about the pairing of her and Andrew Stevens. There was also something to the fact that she was a beautiful woman who did nudity and could actually act. Shannon definitely brought up the bar in any production she graced, making her a bit of a Claudia Jennings to the world of the erotic thriller.
Ah, Tanya Roberts. She burned up the screen in the 80s on Charlie’s Angel’s and as a Bond Girl in A View to a Kill. I won’t even get into Beastmaster… That’s just too much!
Although no one would consider this early 80s thriller a classic, The Seduction does have some interesting and glossy qualities to it. Andrew Stevens’ character is fairly well drawn for a popcorn thriller and eerily close to the kind of obsessive fan famous folks have had to accustom themselves to. In fact, The Seduction’s voyeuristic theme still holds a candle about the warped ability to turn one’s fantasies into a dangerous reality.
What can I say? Sure I think Robert Forster is the hottest thing since low-fat cheese and yeah he just happens to be in the last two erotic thrillers I reviewed but that has nothing to do with why I chose The Banker as my next film. It just so happens that he made a few of these movies back in the day and I just tend to own them because like I said, he’s hot.
What makes a great horror film anyway? Of course the answer is subjective and it truly relies on your ability to open yourself up to your own fears. The rest depends on the madmen behind and in front of the camera. Dario Argento says his greatest inspirations come from his dreams and almost any great horror film I can think of does lie in a surrealistic domain where one can feel the impossibility of the situation. But all dreams come from some germ of reality so in the end, the movie also has to anchor the viewer in a place, however strange, where we relate to at least a nugget of truth either in the situation or within ourselves.
David Heavener has played everything from a mentally unstable Viet Nam vet to a Ragin’ Cajun (in what else? Ragin’ Cajun!) to a down on his luck baseball player, yet the idea of Heavener donning a priest’s collar somehow still comes as a shock. Most people know this rugged actor as the dude kicking major boo-tae through various 90s indie action films (Kill Crazy, Kill or Be Killed, Twisted Fate). However, you might not be aware that he is behind the camera almost as often as he is in front of it. Much like Tom Laughlin (Billy Jack), Heavener figures the only way you’ll get something done the way you want is to do it yourself. In the last two decades, he has starred in-directed-produced-written over ten films. What is the key to his poly-hyphenated lifestyle? The modest filmmaker admits, “It is easy when you have good people around you, which is what I have. I love to act the most.” His latest creation, Confessions of an Exorcist started out just like all the others, but as things began to develop Heavener found that there just might be a home for an episodic series based on exorcisms. I tend to agree.
Shriekfest is a great homespun kind of festival. It’s an intimate affair held at the Raleigh Studios in famous Hollywood, CA. I’m pretty big on the shorts the fest chooses because they are uniformly excellent but this year I could only manage to see two of the features, Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown & Dark Reel… What I love so much about this festival is that not only is Raleigh Studios a fantastic studio to visit but you can sometimes find yourself hobnobbing with the likes of Harry Manfredini or Tony Todd, like I did this year. What can I say, it makes me feel important. So there.
