Electra Reviews

How does one describe the perverse luster of this super-hero extravaganza that ends, rather optimistically, with an announcement for ELECTRA 2: THE SECOND COMING? One could remark that this comic-bookish adventure is a weird combination of SPANKING THE MONKEY (1995) and MODEL BY DAY (1994). Inspired by Greek mythology and Sigmund Freud, ELECTRA spotlights aberrant psychology the way the SUPERMAN series features the dreaded kryptonite. Trapped in his wheelchair, diabolical entrepreneur Mr. Roach (Sten Eirik) pressures his toady, Dr. Bartholomew (Ed Sahely), to perfect a restorative remedy for his legs. When test subjects, captured by Roach's Amazon guards (Lara Daans and Dyanne Di Marco), expire, Bartholomew is forced to reveal the whereabouts of one human subject who has survived prolonged use of the mobility-restoring wonder drug. Suffering, as did his late father, from a rare, life-threatening anemia, Billy Duncan (Joe Tab) pops Daddy's top-secret, all-purpose pills, which endow him with super strength. Because teenage Billy can transmit both his blood malady and his mega-stamina sexually, he strives for self-denial. However, both his girlfriend, Mary Anne (Katie Griffin), and his provocative stepmother, Lorna (Shannon Tweed), are quite willing to risk sharing his predicament. When Roach's predators attack the Duncan household, Herculean Billy defeats the thugs and learns about the plan to steal the Duncan family cure. Lorna flees to the ranch of Mary Anne's father, Parker (John Stoneham Jr.), who is murdered by Roach's female assassins. By the time that Billy and Mary Anne venture into Roach's domain, Roach has captured Lorna and siphoned off her forbidden desire for Billy into a device that transforms her into a wicked wonderwoman named Electra. Although Roach imprisons Billy and Mary Anne, Mary Anne bravely swallows one of Billy's miracle-capsules. Consumed by lust, Electra straddles a manacled Billy, rapes him, and proceeds to pass on her sexually acquired powers to paraplegic Roach. Pharmaceutically strengthened to the max, Mary Anne dispatches her female guards, frees Billy, and vanquishes Electra. Outmaneuvering Roach, Billy crashes the cyber-nut's wheelchair into a computer console, thus causing Roach to explode from an overload of data. Electra flickers with signs of vengeful life after Billy and Mary Anne escape. Hell hath no fury like a stepmother scorned! The problem with ELECTRA is that its writer and director exhibit more imagination than style. It's a fanciful but retrogressive action flick that diminishes its energy during every martial arts sequence; the brawlers seem to wait for each choreographed punch to land. However, as a libidinously incorrect fairy tale for adults, ELECTRA is quite juicy. This naughty fantasy successfully parodies mad scientist movies, revealing the drooling subtext driving all those hysteria-prone lab monsters butting into God's business. If Roach is a voyeur version of Dr. Frankenstein, then Lorna/Electra is the bride of Frankenstein born at a clinic for sex addicts. Deliberately crossing the bounds of propriety, ELECTRA toys with pseudo-incest as a catalyst. It doesn't matter that Lorna is Billy's stepmother; everyone behaves as if she has violated the handbook of motherhood. Thus, despite the seesawing predictability of the many villainous attack scenes, and despite some cosmically bad acting, ELECTRA tickles its audience by focusing on a trumped-up moral depravity. There are far less entertaining spectacles than a sci-fi fest in which everyone is motivated by and saturated with titillating sexuality. (Graphic violence, extensive nudity, extreme profanity, adult situations, sexual situations.)