Explosion der Leidenschaften

A typically cheap David DeCoteau production that was shot in 5 days, but without any of the campy fun of some of his other works like Nightmare Sisters or Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama. It's a competently made erotic thriller, but lacking any real style or narrative slow. Nudity fans get a good amount of equal opportunity skin from both men and women, but the script feels like it was written on the spot and all the actors seem like they're reading from a teleprompter.

My review was written in February 1989 after watching the film on Prism video cassette.

"Deadly Embrace" is an off-beat film noir, going direct to video. More care and a bigger budget would have helped.

Framed by an awkward and irritating flashback structure, pic has Ken Abraham as a hapless young stud hired (rather suspiciously) to work as a houseman at rich businessman Jan-Michael Vincent's Beverly Hills estate.

Vincent only has time for weekends at home, leaving his beautiful wife (Ty Randolph) alone and lonely. Her affair with Abraham starts on cue, but is disrupted when Abraham has his cute young girlfriend (perky Linnea Quigley) visit and shack up with him.

Blackmailing and doublecrossing enuse, with a surprise ending. The flashback structure, with abstract shots of the hands of two guys, smoking, across a table while they voice-over the plot, doesn't pay off.

Despite top billing, Vincent merely walks through this assignment. This focuses attention on Randolph, who is an impressive presence as the neglected wife. She previously used the monikers Tyler Windsor Randolph and Mindi Miller for screen credits in "Amazons" and "Body Double".

Tech credits are okay but on the cheap side.

Jan Michael Vincent puts in one of Hollywood's most wooden performances as a philandering husband bizarrely determined to resist the obvious charms of his wife, the gorgeous Ty Randolph.

Randolph manages to skilfully combine poignancy and a charged eroticism to her role as the neglected and ultimately disturbed wife.

Ultimately, the poor plot and acting performances of the other principals condemns Deadly Embrace to mediocrity.

This movie belongs to Ty Randolph, who pulls off an acting coup in her portrayal of the seamless fusion of dominance and dependence in the personality of a predator, Charlotte Morland, who goes after the newly hired houseman Chris (played by Ken Abraham) while her despicable husband Stuart Morland (Jan Michael Vincent), who is only home on weekends, strings along his trampy secretary until he can decide "what to do with my wife" and Chris's sweet, not-too-bright girlfriend Michelle (Linnea Quigley), who loves Chris very much, can't wait to hook up with him in his new digs.

The result is a triple triangle: the Morlands and his secretary; the same Morlands and Chris; and Charlotte, Chris, and Michelle. What could possibly go wrong?

Although one part of the ending is revealed early on, it doesn't spoil the final twists. Quigley is adorable and believable, making you want to keep Michelle from harm; Vincent's one-note performance I judge to be good because every time Morland speaks I hate him more; and Jack Carter is good as Morland's lawyer though Ruth Collins is wooden as his secretary. Just for Ty Randolph and the final surprises, I think this movie is worth seeing despite its flaws.

The main weak spot is Chris, in two areas: script and casting. The Morlands are domineering people who make things happen; but the story is centered on Chris, a guy things happen to. With every development you're thinking he should know better. And the actor, Ken Abraham, can't seem to find the character--he wanders through various character types and fails to react at critical points. There's a good deal of movie-maker artifice too, especially the intrusive fantasy clips; they work when they tell us Chris fantasizes Michelle in all situatins, but the ones with Michelle Bauer as the "goddess of sex" confuse the story.

David DeCoteau directs this fairly pleasing movie that showcases the abilities and physical assets of its female cast to good effect. In fact, it often plays like an exercise in titillation *sometimes* interrupted by a story. DeCoteau does go out of his way to stylize the movie, working with whatever minimal budget he must have had. Set to a pulsating electronic music score by Del Casher, it features characters capable of earning our sympathies.

Ken Abraham ("Creepozoids") is cast as Chris Thompson, an amiable young stud hired to work as a houseboy for well-off couple Stewart (Jan-Michael Vincent) and Charlotte Moreland (Mindi Miller, billed as 'Ty Randolph'). Stewart has tired of the marriage, but is told by his lawyer Evan Weiss (Jack Carter) that because there was no pre-nup, he'd have to split everything 50-50 with Charlotte. While he tries to come up with a way to work around this, the lonely Charlotte turns on the heat and has a sexual tryst with Chris, who feels pangs of guilt because he already has a girlfriend, sweet aspiring actress Michelle Arno (Linnea Quigley).

When it comes to the DeCoteau filmography, one must expect a certain lack of slickness and negligible acting - most of the time, anyway. This one, at least, is reasonably compelling in a sordid and sad way. Not that this will matter to many viewers, who will watch it for the titillation factor and be rewarded with a regular helping of sex and nudity - both female and male. This takes up a substantial amount of the run time, which is fortunately fairly trim (just over 80 minutes) in a B movie tradition.

Quigley is adorable, and she and her co-stars Miller, Michelle Bauer, and Ruth Collins all look great. Ms. Millers' performance as the voyeuristic and ultimately disturbed Charlotte is a definite highlight.

Seven out of 10.