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SINFUL DEEDS
The box art of SINFUL DEEDS tries really hard to draw comparison to NATURAL BORN KILLERS. It features a dark and imposing bald man whose face is silhouetted and eyes hidden behind sunglasses. In the reflection of those glasses we see what looks like a frightened woman reacting to his presence. The blurb on the cover reads, "a serial killer is out to clean the streets of all sinners." Judging by all this, one might think that he or she is about to set down and watch the latest serial killer thriller, but as we all know, you just can’t judge anything by its cover.Julie (Syren) is a dancer who dreams of dancing in a touring production someday, but in meantime, she’s perfectly happy just strutting her stuff down at Teasers, the local exotic dance club. Unfortunately, her boy friend (Frank Harper) doesn’t really appreciate her current profession and gets very jealous at the thought of strange men checking out her goods. It doesn’t help matters either that Julie’s boss (John Crown) is a total sleaze who has done the deed with all the dancers except her. Then there is that obsessive customer (Britt Chichester) who practically lives at the club and falls in love with a different stripper every week. If being surrounded by all these suspicious men weren’t problematic enough, Julie’s best friend from the club has mysteriously disappeared without a trace.
Not getting any help from the police, Julie hires a private detective (Brad Bartram) to help her solve the mystery of her friend’s disappearance. This really angers her boy friend who tells her she shouldn’t get involved in other people’s business. Julie’s boss gets furious because he doesn’t want the cops sniffing around his club and even threatens to fire her if she doesn’t drop the whole thing. The obsessive customer tells Julie that she is the most beautiful girl he’s met (this week) after mentioning earlier that he would do anything to get one of the girls alone. Could it be that one of these three men might be the killer?
I won’t spoil it for you, even though you probably won’t care even if you do watch it. This is because the whole point of SINFUL DEEDS, despite what the cover tries to make it look like, isn’t really concerned about things like suspense, mystery, horror, or even story development. The whole serial killer angle is mostly just a way to connect a series of soft porn sex scenes. You know, five minutes of sex, five minutes of story, another five minutes of sex, five minutes of story, five minutes of two supporting characters having lesbian sex, five more minutes of story, and so on. Basically, SINFUL DEEDS is one of those movies you see on Cinemax or Showtime at three in the morning.
With the exception of two of the male leads, the acting is about what you would come to expect from this type of film. John Crown seems somewhat bored as the troubled night club owner although he still manages to act circles around most of the other cast members. I also liked Brad Bartram (WICKED SINS, TWISTED NIGHTMARE) who plays the private detective. Not only does he come across as a genuine likable guy, he also has more of an average attractive man look as opposed to your typical Hollywood stud, which is kind of refreshing.
Adult Film star Syren (LES VAMPYRES parts 1 &2, CREME DE LA FACE 4 makes her main stream film debut as the female lead, Julie. I suspect that your typical audience for this kind of film couldn’t really care whether this Hawaiian beauty can act or not, so I’ll just say that she looks good and gets naked a lot and leave it at that.
Other than a small amount of blood, there really aren’t any special effects to speak of. The only on screen kill is very cheesy and takes place on a sunny afternoon in a parking lot with plenty of traffic in the back ground. You would think that the film makers could have changed the camera angle and at least tried to make the parking lot seem somewhat desolate.
I also noticed that quite a few of the sex scenes were cut, most likely to earn that "R" rating. It becomes very obvious when the music skips during certain jump cuts that something was removed and it’s quite chintzy that the music wasn’t just redubbed after the edits were made. I bet composer Jay Harris pinched off a brick when he heard how his otherwise top notch score was hacked up for a quick rating fix. The good news is that movies like this (That get edited for sexual content for its home video release) usually show up uncut on either Showtime or Cinemax later down the road, so keep your fingers crossed and keep checking those cable listings.
I personally don’t have a problem with soft-core films, even the ones that are more interesting when you fast forward through the "story" just to get to the sex and nudity. I do think, however, that people looking for the more erotic type of film are going to pass this one over thinking it is a thriller, and people looking for a thriller are going to be very disappointed to learn that they just rented a skin flick. I can’t help but wonder if in the long run if this will help SINFUL DEEDS win fans or just piss people off.
Scott Roberts
2-19-2003