Runtime: 103 minutes
Directed by: Nicholas Kazan
Starring: James Spader, Madchen Amick, Fredric Lehne, Bess Armstrong, Larry Miller
From: Gramercy Pictures
I’d call Madchen Amick beautiful… but her character here would be aghast at that comment. For awhile now I have known that she is an attractive woman, both now and then. Yet I’ve never experienced Twin Peaks before so this was the first time for me to have seen her in anything. It is currently on the Criterion Channel in their new Erotic Thrillers collection. It has many of the expected 80’s and 90’s films (such as Poison Ivy, Dressed to Kill and Body Double) along with a film or two like this that I knew nothing about beforehand. The fact that someone I know is a big fan yet the reasons as to why were not elaborated upon… I was intrigued.
James Spader plays a recently divorced architect who is looking for love; how lucky for him then that he literally bumps into Amick. They quickly fall in love & start a family. He starts noticing odd things, then… you can probably guess where this sleazy & trashy story goes. Just why and how it happens is the intrigue; inherent in this genre is some stereotypes, which will be objectionable to some. I can accept that and be amused by this entertainment that served as erotica before the Internet became popular. After all, when we get full frontal nudity you don’t need more than one guess to know that it was from Amick… that alone may be a draw for some!
The performances from Spader and Amick stand out which help kept my interest intact through all the tawdry then shocking moments. I don’t just mean their acting during the “sexy time”, either. There were some other faces I recognized in the cast, from Bess Armstrong to Larry Miller playing the exact sort of slimeball character that is second nature for him. Complaints could be made about this film, admittedly—there are some odd dream sequences which were a different way of presenting the thoughts of Old James; however, brownie points were given for the conclusion. It got quite the reaction out of me-the specificity of this reaction won’t be elaborated upon.
If you get a kick out of such trash which we rarely get anymore-one day I’ll subscribe to Hulu so last year’s Deep Water will be viewed as that IS just like the erotic thrillers of old-then you just might get your jollies from Dream Lover. By the way, one recommendation from that Criterion Channel collection after the two De Palma pictures: Crimes of Passion. Now there is a wild movie from Ken Russell—no relation.
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