The first "Animal Instincts" was an entertainingly silly softcore thriller with b-movie goddess Shannon Whirry, who reprises her role in this sequel, and the usual slew of has-been actors slumming it in straight-to-video land: David Carradine and Jan-Michael Vincent in this instance.
It was the story of a neglected housewife - aren't they always - who found a way to turn on her husband by filming herself having sex. The husband tried to use this to ensnare a corrupt politician (Vincent) in a scandal for a nightclub owner (Carradine). It was enjoyably silly, though it didn't provide much clue as to why Gregory Dark - here credited as Hippolyte - has been called the "Scorsese of b-movies". The direction was actually pretty amateurish.
Again, the movie employs the device of having Whirry speak to some off-camera therapist to introduce different scenes. She has apparently lost the cop husband from the previous movie, and is relocating, perhaps to escape the notoriety the plot of the first movie earned her - however unrealistically. (Wow, a woman has sex in front of a camera. How amazing.)
In Whirry's new classy neighbourhood, everyone looks like they stepped out of an episode of "The Young and the Restless". They apparently all need handymen, and have no qualms about stripping off in front of them, or receiving them in lingerie.
One of the handymen hides a small camera in a smoke detector, which was luckily placed exactly where it would need to be for him to spy on the lingerie-lady having sex. After that, he basically ravishes his wife sexually, which struck me as a rare example of someone in a softcore movie doing something that actually makes sense. Normally their behaviours and motivations are totally out of the range of average people; it's pure, sophisticated fantasy.
Unusually for a movie like this, there are no former a-listers slumming it, nor any actors whose names I recognized in the opening credits, save Whirry's. However, Al Sapienza, who played Junior Soprano's stooge Mikey Palmice, makes an appearance as a sleazy photographer.
In one unintentionally amusing line of dialogue, Whirry complains she is about to run out of money, while lounging in her backyard pool. Perhaps that would have been less of an issue if she had chosen more affordable accomodation. Here's a wild and crazy idea: an erotic b-movie NOT set in a soap opera style neighbourhood. Set around real people who actually live within their means and have real problems. Has that ever been done?
Whirry fixates on the handyman who put the camera in the lady's house. As a handyman, it seems unlikely he'd be able to afford to live in this neighbourhood. His wife is not only beautiful, but she seems a lot nicer than Whirry.
The movie only seems to become a "thriller" right at the end, as though they forgot that part of the story. One of the characters, who should have been established as a bad guy earlier, does bad guy stuff.
"Animal Instincts II" is about average for a b-grade softcore thriller (is there any other type?). I doubt I'll remember anything about it.
