They're Playing with Fire

That Eric Brown, what a lucky dude. First in Private Lessons with Sylvia Kristel and then in They're Playing With Fire with Sybil Danning the boy is doing well with the cougars.

However other than those titillating sex scenes there's not much to recommend either film. Danning seduces Brown but that's at the behest of her husband Andrew Prine. They're both tired of sitting around and waiting for his mother and grandmother to die. They want Brown to break in and just scare the two women so they might sell the old mansion and give them some of the loot.

But then some hooded individual comes along and murders the two women and hides the bodies. A few more deaths follow before we learn the truth.

If it weren't for Sybil Danning's body and those two weapons of mass destruction she has interest would be minimal here. If that's your thing go for it.

I have what I call "The Adrienne Barbeau Theorem," which is as follows: Big breasts, in and of themselves, are not enough reason to watch a terrible movie. Ironically, there are two movies that strongly test my theorem, and one of them is Adrienne Barbeau's "Swamp Thing." The other is an abysmal '80s slasher flick titled "They're Playing with Fire." Sybil Danning plays an English professor (so much for realism) who seduces one of her young students (Eric Brown) in order to make him a patsy in a murder plot in which she's involved. Despite its familiar ring, this plot line is several generations (not to mention quality points) removed from "Double Indemnity" and its ilk. In fact, the movie's slasher motif is so sordid, even for this genre, that it's painful to watch. The movie would be deservedly forgotten, were it not for Danning's astounding sex scenes.

These scenes, particularly the first one, are as jaw-dropping as anything you're likely to see in a mainstream, R-rated movie. While not as anatomically graphic as your average porn video, Danning in the altogether amply displays enough, er, enthusiasm to get her point across. In fact, she's so enthusiastic, you lose any sympathy for the kid she's seducing. Here's this gorgeous, buxom blonde twisting the night away on top of him, and he can't think of anything better to do than *make conversation* with her! Obviously, the kid needs an education in more than English.

Other than the all-too-brief scenes in which Danning demonstrates why a date with her would fetch a small fortune on an auction block, the movie's only element of interest is in seeing Alvy Moore, who played Hooterville county agent Hank Kimball on TV's "Green Acres," hitting a career low as a gas-station manager who's dumb enough to hire and re-hire the kid as an attendant even after he's dumped the job on the promise of some loot from Danning's English professor. The only thing that could have made this movie more bad-memorable would be to pair Danning with fluttery Hank Kimball: "Welcome to Hootersville, I mean Hooterville! Sorry, I was blinded by your headlights, I mean my car headlights. The car is strangely stacked, I mean built, I mean..."

If I'd had a teacher at college who looked like Sybil Danning, I wouldn't have got much work done. Come to think of it, my teacher was a middle-aged man with a beard, and I still didn't get much work done. Aah, those lazy, hazy college days....

Eric Brown plays Jay Richard, the English student who gets to boff his beautiful, busty professor Diana in exchange for doing a few jobs: varnishing her yacht (not a euphemism) and sneaking into the home of her husband's mother and grandmother to scare the old women enough so that Diane and hubbie Michael (Andrew Prine) can be made executors of the estate. As is par for the course in this kind of trash, things don't go according to plan, with a masked murderer on the loose causing all sorts of problems for poor Jay.

The incredible Ms. Danning is the main reason to watch this otherwise lacklustre thriller, the hard-bodied hottie regularly stripping off to give us a good look at her amazing attributes. Without her to steam up the screen, the film would be largely forgettable, with a dumb plot that will have you screaming at Jay throughout, "Go to the police, NOW!" (but bang Diane one last time before you do).

What starts as a saucy slice of teenage wish-fulfilment slowly turns into a sub-standard '80s slasher, with the bodies piling up, and Jay teaming up with Diane to solve the mystery. The killer is fairly unimposing - far removed from unstoppable giants such as Jason and Michael Myers - and has a tendency to speak like Elmo from Sesame Street, which makes him even less scary.

Unmissable stuff for fans of its voluptuous, frequently naked female star, but as a thriller/horror, it's merely passable.

But I guess you'd be hard press not to take the risk of getting burnt! "I don't know what he sees in her?" Huh! Well simply who would want to knock back the advancements of the Austrian born blonde buxom Sybil Danning. Oh she sizzles and it's difficult not to ogle, as the director takes every opportunity to focus on her curvy shape in a very desirable manner. Plenty of instances we find Danning in the buff and everything seems to play secondary to her T&A.

The highly attractive English professor Diane Stevens seduces her gullible student Jay in a plan crafted by her husband Michael to inherit his family's fortune. However things turn pear shape when murder becomes apart of it.

In the 80s Eric Red was living every teenage boy's wet dream, as only years before he was getting it on with another European goddess Sylvia Kristel in "Private Lessons". So the hormones go crazy once again. But while the two films share some similarities, "They're Playing with Fire" is less light-headed being a lot more sleazy and spiteful in mixing elements of popular teenage sex comedies and jarring slasher traits. Holding this exploitation together is a deviously plotted murder-mystery soapish narrative. Even with the paranoid reactions, deceitful manipulation and masked intentions where nothing seems quite as it is. It kind of gets obvious just who's behind it due to the minor red herrings and the clues that sprung up, so we're left to hang around to wait for the motivation for the homicidal madness. It's quite overlong in its quest to reach its messy, silly revelation too. As for the shocks they're surprisingly nasty and bloody, but still clumsily handled by director Howard Avedis and the eccentric script consists of plenty sharp stabs of irony. Covering the film's soundtrack is numerous cheese-grated rock ballads with the seductive title song leading the way. The acting is colourful enough; Danning is a talented actress than just a figure and her strong presence shows it. Red is fitting and Andrew Prine is great as her vain husband. Offering fine support are Paul Clemens, K.T Stevens, Dominick Brascia and Alvy Moore.

It's an odd, neurotic and junky combination altogether, but incredibly amusing nonetheless.

Since her start in the late 1960's, Sybil Danning has been called upon to use her sensuality and statuesque physique to bail out many a "B" movie. No exception here, as the stunning Danning plays a college professor/seductress. The victim is gullible Eric Brown (who's acting abilities resemble those of a 4th grader). The highlight of this movie is the seduction of Brown by Danning in the yacht. Great camerawork and Danning's sensuality in her strip give a scorching rating to a scene that will be relived in the minds of red-blooded males. Her other sex scenes were Brown are equally erotic but that is as good as it gets with this movie. The plot is predictable and the suspense...well...is just not there. A must for all Danning fans though, so you can drool at the sensual charms of this erotic goddess who seems to have saved the face of many an aspiring "B" movie director with her presence.