This relatively straight-faced roughie stands as one of Shaun Costello's more disturbing works, surpassed only perhaps by his notorious DOMINATRIX WITHOUT MERCY made that same year with a slightly more substantial budget. Lack of funds must surely be considered the primary reason why this otherwise seriously sick puppy never quite gets under one's skin.
Pity poor Ellie (C.J. Laing) who, in her quest for sexual satisfaction through extreme humiliation, has fallen in with a death cult determined to take their actions to a logical conclusion by sacrificing one of their own. This sacrificial lamb will receive a note depicting a skull and crossbones. None too surprisingly, Ellie turns out to be the chosen one. Hit by this distressing news, she reminisces about her initiation into the cult at the hands of its perpetually hooded leader (Costello, the voice and physique being a dead giveaway by now) and her seemingly heavily medicated boyfriend Bob, who sports a '70s soccer star's ill-advised mullet and looks like a young David Morris but is actually Pepe Valentine (billed as "Michael King"), the boy next door from INSIDE JENNIFER WELLES, where he performed a threesome with the star and Peter Andrews. This sequence once again showcases Costello's keen eye for composition with its nearly abstract view of the four intermingling bodies shot from below. Another aspect of the scene should convince most viewers by now that Costello was at the very least bi-curious when his character requests and receives an open-mouthed kiss from the other girl (not C.J., so I'm going to assume she's the mysterious "Brenda Filbrick") in the scene after Bob has popped a non-faked load in same mouth, semen merrily dribbling down their chins ! With Ellie pleading in vain with Bob to let her hide out at a friend's house, all is prepared for the big event. Unfortunately, the shocking sight of the homemade electric chair that has been set up for Ellie's demise is severely diminished by Costello explaining the procedure in a tone better suited to a car polish infomercial. Fitted onto a wired dildo and hooked up with starter cable nipple clamps, the poor girl is forced to witness the other cult members (with an incredibly youthful Sharon Mitchell dragged in at the eleventh hour) engage in a mini orgy before the switch is flipped and the frame freezes.
Threadbare even by Costello's standards, this film lacks the kind of strong central performance provided by Marlene Willoughby in BETRAYED TEENS or Roger Caine in the Dan McCord vehicles, giving a much-needed impression of gravitas to basically nonsensical material. C.J. Laing cements her reputation as the ultimate '70s sleaze cinema submissive (try saying that three times in a row) but necessarily makes for a very passive heroine. While her powers of endurance may be impressive (relax, the severe beating she receives is clearly faked with clever editing and red food dye on the cat o'nine), her whining acceptance of her sorry plight while she could so easily have fled make her character almost impossible to sympathize with.
