Double Threat Reviews

An also-ran in the increasingly-crowded field of erotic thrillers, DOUBLE THREAT at least has the smarts to take place in the belly of the beast itself, Hollywood, where the flesh-peddling aspects of the film biz gets a seriocomic sendup before the tale trips badly over itself. Monica Martel (Sally Kirkland), a faded sex symbol trying to make a comeback in an erotic thriller, has a problem. "I've never had to do a nude scene in any of my films," she complains, "I'm not starting now." So the studio hires young beauty Lisa Shane (Sherrie Rose) to be the star's body double. Monica's vanity is wounded by the replacement, and it gets worse when Monica's leading man/current husband Eric (Andrew Stevens) flirts with Lisa. Monica tries to be philosophical about it: "That's Hollywood. No one loves anyone. They just pretend to." But then somebody tries to kill Lisa with a car bomb. Has Monica finally gone homicidal? DOUBLE THREAT is actually fairly diverting up to this point, doing a better job than most of its ilk in setting up the real vs. illusion trickery. Unfortunately in the finale, all the plot twists are laboriously explained, complete with unnecessary flashbacks, adding an anticlimactic 15 minutes. It doesn't help that the gimmick of Lisa's secret identity is a twist lifted from a previous Kirkland vehicle, IN THE HEAT OF PASSION. There's also the 'mystery' of an anonymous caller who names the guilty party, but nobody could mistake the deep-throated voice of Police Det. Fenich, played by sepulchral Richard Lynch. The tinseltown-insider tone of the picture comes courtesy of director David A. Prior and executive producer David Winters, who have made so many direct-to-video B-, C-, and Z-movies over the past few years (FIREHEAD, CENTER OF THE WEB, RAW NERVE, FUTURE FORCE, FUTURE ZONE, NIGHT WARS, KILLER WORKOUT) that one fears for their health and well-being. At least they're now hiring classier casts, and Kirkland, a voluptuous screen vet often seen clad only in skimpy scripts, has fun as the aging love goddess, though Sherrie Rose and Andrew Stevens have little more to do than look good. DOUBLE THREAT came to home video early in 1993 complete with chintzy censorship controversy. Reportedly the General Cinema Corporation chain refused to exhibit it in theaters, because of a gratuitous scene in which Monica masturbates while watching a video of Eric's gym workout. David Winters cried foul over GCC's ban in a flurry of press releases that looked suspiciously like attempts to stir up interest in DOUBLE THREAT's videotape debut, naturally in both R-rated and steamier unrated versions. That's awfully cynical, but no more so than similar promotion ploys for BASIC INSTINCT, SLIVER, WILD ORCHID, and other allegedly upmarket productions. (Sexual situations, nudity, adult situations, violence, profanity.)