Rating: C-
Dir: Simon Oliver
Star: Nathan Hill, Shar Dee, Diana Benjamin, Tass Tokatlidis
This reunites the director and star of Alien Love, and is a palpable improvement. The story is one much more in line with the resources available, and the restraint definitely helps. There are still issues: not least that this has the shape of an erotic thriller, without ever being particularly erotic or thrilling. The hero – or victim, both terms being somewhat accurate – is Steve (Hill). He’s a cop who got the snot beaten out of him while chasing down a suspect, Andrew (Tokatlidis). Steve is now on extended leave, while he recovers from the injuries, and is increasingly bored at being confined to the house, with the only visitor beyond his other half, Lexi (Dee), being his physical therapist.
Andrew, now banged up in jail, is none too happy about the confinement. He orders his girlfriend, Sasha (Benjamin), to destroy Steve’s life. She intimidates the therapist into taking an extended absence, and takes her place, with the intent of seducing Steve and destroying his existing relationship. Except, as always in such things, it doesn’t go quite as planned. Lexi begins to grow suspicious of the new therapist. I can’t say I blame her, since the amount of actual therapy Sasha provides is on the “may contain traces of peanuts” level. Meanwhile, Sasha’s loyalties begin to be split, not exactly a situation with which Andrew is happy. After Lexi gets in touch with the previous therapist, she discovers her concerns are highly justified.
Firstly, can I direct your attention to the wonderful poster? This is absolutely everything advertising should be. If you don’t want to see the movie, you clearly have not gazed at the poster for long enough. Of course, like all the best exploitation posters, it’s being rather economical with the truth. While there is a nurse’s uniform at one point, it’s more of the “slightly discounted aisle at Party City” type. As portrayed here, Sasha is simply too nice to sell the femme fatale thing. Sure, she scares off the therapist, but I was never convinced of her posing any serious threat to Steve and/or Lexi. Andrew, on the other hand, was impressively menacing: shame he spends almost the whole film in prison.
Instead, it’s mostly Sasha and Steve circling around each other for the first hour. Since it only runs seventy minutes, that doesn’t leave a great deal of time for everything else to happen. We do get the expected confrontation between the two women, after Lexi sees a highly incriminating video. Though unfortunately, we do not get the hoped-for cat-fight between the two women. Hill delivers a solid enough performance as an everyman hero, to whom it’s quite easy to relate: he’s just a guy. However, it’s almost chaste, and largely bloodless. I think it definitely needs to commit harder to the topics here, and lean into the sex ‘n’ violence. As is, it’s perilously close to being something you stick on as background entertainment, rather than commanding your entire attention.