Sensation

First of all, you don't pick up movies like this for high drama or auteur (check Fellini or Goodard if you want that)...you get them because they combine a nice combination of eroticism, skin and a plot that holds your attention. This one succeeds. It's a slight notch above your average skin-a-max flick, largely because of the luscious Kari Wuhrer, who's made a (surprisingly long) career out of being a sexy brunette that the screen loves.

Here, we see much skin and some nice action, as she plays a woman w/ psychic abilities, caught up in a murder mystery. Nice simulated sex scenes, Kari and Claire Stansfield are hot (great boobs), and Eric Roberts (one of the all-time great scenery chewers, and I mean that w/ love) make this worth a look. As a thriller, it's pedestrian, but holds attention.

If you're looking for something really raunchy, get a Surrender Cinema flick or something from Penthouse. If you want high art, get the Unbearable Lightness of Being (or something). If you're looking for a mildly entertaining movie that titillates, check this one out.

Despite a promising start and an intriguing premise, this film falls apart, and winds up being little more than a fairly routine and predictable thriller. Kari Wuhrer does a good job as the lead, and Roberts and Perlman are solid as usual, but all the good ideas in this film were used up in the first half-hour. The killer seemed obvious to me for much of the film, and things were further hindered by the needless character that was played by Ed Begley, Jr. Considering how impressive the opening was, this turned out to be quite the disappointment.

With talent on board, Eric Roberts, Kari Wuhrer, Ron Perlman, Ed Begley Jr., and Paul LeMat, this pseudo-science based thriller starts strong, but ends up a mess. Intriguing at first with Roberts employing Wuhrer to test his theory (Psychometry) that objects retain impressions of the past, the middle part seems very repetitive and drags, while the rushed conclusion is really an "are you kidding me?". Roberts is his usual quirky self. Wuhrer is sexy with several erotic scenes and plays a character who can see the past by touching things, similar to Christopher Walken's in "The Dead Zone". Perlman is under used as a police detective, while Begley Jr., and LeMat are totally wasted in unnecessary roles. - MERK

Sensation is an early 90's erotic thriller with a great cast and quite a unique premise. Lila (Kari Wuhrer) is a college student and an artist whose picked for a very unique study. She is tasked by psychologist Ian Burton (Eric Roberts) to sense items for feelings or who they belonged to. Soon she begins seeing violent and sexual visions caused by the items which leads her to believe he must be the killer.

All of the above got me interested and hankering watching this and I was severely disappointed. I like erotic thrillers and this era was the goldmine for them Color Of Night, Jade, etc. Etc. Sadly the only good thing about this film is the cast and introduction. There is little to no substance to this film, nudity took up an unruly amount of time and felt like it was there to pad the weak script. I generally appreciate the mystery aspects of these style of films, but even that aspect was quite boring and predictable.

This film is one you should skip, the performances are good but forgettable. However the rest of this film is very much a waste of time. I hate being hard on film makers because it's an art and artists want their pieces of art to express something however this expresses nothing of value or interest in my opinion.

3 out of 10 for the great cast and good acting.

This popped up in my Prime recommendations. Seeing the talent, I decided to give it a watch.

Not terrible, but I literally had to laugh at how dated the "erotic thriller" genre has become. There's just an absurd amount of gratuitous nudity and soft core sex (you know, the kind where the...um..."parts" don't quite line up right). When they're not having soft core sex, Kari Wuhrer is dreaming about soft core sex - like, a lot.

This genre drove cable subscriptions ("Cinemax: we have more breasts than HBO"), and always got a lot of real estate video rental stores, but in the modern internet age, it just comes across as kind of tame and silly.

If you strip out the gratuitous titillation, it's basically a 70s-esque plot about a (hot) college student who has paranormal abilities and gets recruited but a (hot) college professor surreptitiously uses her to try to solve the murder of his former girlfriend (did people really say "lover" in 1994?) - or is it to cover up his own involvement?

Anyway, the acting is decent, and they throw in enough red herrings that I really didn't see the end coming.