Los placeres ocultos

This film explores very well the relations between sex and death, pleasure and fear. It has a very tense and dark soundtrack while two interesting characters play their sex "games". There are surprising revelations along the way and the film always makes us keep guessing how it is going to end. If you are looking for a genuinely tense and scary erotic thriller this is the one.

I stumbled on this one by accident and am glad I did. A middle aged but luscious psychiatrist on her way home from work is kidnapped and raped, brutally and bizarrely, by a sexually dysfunctional masked man. She is clearly terrified during the act, but also tells him to proceed, and that she loves what he is doing to her. Is she trying to outwit him, or is she being sincere? He leaves her for dead in the woods, but she survives.

She has reason to suspect that the rapist is a former patient of hers, who, it turns out, is somewhat fixated with her. She contacts him and tells him of the rape, without telling him that she suspects that he is the perpetrator. Instead, she says that the incident awakened new feelings inside her, and that she wants to indulge in "no holds barred" sex with him while her husband is out of town for a few days. Is she being sincere, or is she plotting revenge?

What follows is awfully hot and tense, way above the level of your usual so-called "erotic thriller". I think that's because the actors in this one genuinely act! In most of these films, you get the feeling that the director's method was just to throw some naked bimbos, guns and cheating spouses onto a set, and to film whatever happens to follow. "Playback", on the other hand, was carefully crafted, and thoughtfully made.

Recommended.