Carnal Crimes Reviews

This sexy thriller begins with Elise (Linda Carol), the bored and neglected wife of powerful L.A. lawyer Stanley (Rich Crater), embarking on a torrid love affair with kinky artist Renny (Martin Hewitt). At his urging, Elise is soon uninhibitedly sleeping with randy strangers, but she catches on to Renny's manipulativeness and calls off the affair. Cop Ronas (Alex Kubik) coerces Elise into helping the LAPD nail Renny, who they suspect is a sadistic serial killer. Renny, armed with videotapes of her sexual activities, blackmails Elise with exposure to Stanley but it turns out that Stanley has orchestrated the entire plot in order to get his wife to participate in bondage and S&M sessions with him. Elise helps Ronas catch Renny, then bids farewell to both her husband and her useless life in Beverly Hills. Glossily photographed by Paul Desatoff, this ripe chunk of exploitation is bursting with kinky sex--voyeurism, bondage, S&M, threesomes--and violence and is feverishly directed by Alexander Hippolyte, although Jon Robert Samsel's jerry-built screenplay falls apart well before its unbelievable ending. The acting, if undistinguished, is suitably energetic for the genre. Released direct-to-video. (Violence, profanity, sexual situations, nudity.)