Monday 2 July 2018

Retro Review: Irresistible Impulse (1996)

Irresistible Impulse 
1996
Cast: Doug Jeffrey, Lee Ann Beaman, Kathy Shower, Robert Milano
Genre: Erotic Thriller






'Surprisingly Watchable Though Performances Are Mixed'

I wasn't expecting much from this Jay Mundrha directed erotic thriller from the mid-1990s, well I wasn't expecting anything that is good at all, besides the erotic sex scenes. Funnily enough, however, I was surprised at how this one tried to offer a legitimately good story that sort of held up, right into the end.

Little- known Doug Jeffrey, who is more familiar to his fans and audiences for his athletic and lean looking body & making out with several actresses in numerous erotic movies, is Richard Lovejoy, an estate agent. Things haven't been going so well for him at the moment: his estranged wife is irritated that he forged her name on his cheque and he has massive gambling debts to pay off. When a rich widow shows up, he reluctantly teams up with her to close a sale. After Richard and she have an affair, she is murdered and her personal assistant, who also sleeps with Richard, launches a personal vendetta and blackmails him in a financial scam and holding him to account for her death. With that, he falls deeper into her trap.  




For those of you unfamiliar with Jay Mundrha, he is an American film director of Indian origin who specialises in erotic thriller films of the softcore variety, and pretty much all of them are forgettable and bad. This one though was not bad, as the story became more interesting as it went on. The nude sex scenes were done well, and yes it's the typical X-rated sleaze you'd expect to see on adult movie channels late at night. 

Former Playboy of the month Kathy Shower is in this one, but she only has a small role as the wife, which I was disappointed in as I wanted to see more of her character.

Admittingly, I sort of liked this one; I liked that as convoluted as the plot was, it was one of those plot-driven sex thrillers that tried to engage my attention through the story and less so through the sex scenes. Irresistible Impulse has some twists I never saw coming, which further spurred my interest. 

As far as the performances and characters go, it's a mixed bag: as well as Shower being underused, the thugs are cardboard cutouts with a burly Black guy staying silent & not saying a word, until, towards the end, the lead Doug Jeffrey giving a better performance than in most of the other films I've seen him in and the femme fatale was above mediocre.


Final Verdict

Like I mentioned, I expected this to be a typical sex trash that would be long forgotten in my memory but turns out it wasn't and it was very enjoyable. It's one of the fewest erotic thrillers that actually has more to offer than just your usual sex scenes.

This was a surprise, but a nice one. 


Overall:


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