monsters from the id

Moviemakers love franchise titles. As convenient shorthand for the viewer, they guarantee a built-in audience. And while mainstream releases usually require some continuity of plot or cast (impossible to imagine `Scream 2' without the survivors from `Scream' and ditto for `Scream 3'), late-night cable audiences are not quite so demanding. There's also an unwillingness to consign a splendid title to one-time use. Who could resist the lure of `Confessions of a Lap Dancer', even if the movie itself was a real stinker?

In `Masseuse 3', we have Landon Hall, ported in from the previous title in the series, playing a Madame providing massage therapy to LA's finest. The problem is that most of the rest of this movie also seems beamed aboard. The early scenes follow a stock two-shot format: strip shows spliced together with reaction shots. The womens' performances run the gamut from banal to inspired but the reaction shots all routinely picture the mutation of Hollywood hunk to lust-crazed goober. Our hero's eyes bulge and his mouth forms a huge cartoon `O', until he looks like a giant tanned carp. There's such a disconnected feel to the format that at one point I checked the wallpaper of the two shots to see if they were the same. An Oscar to the Continuity Department for making sure that the backgrounds match.

We even have some posthumous performances since our hero, fatally shot in mid-movie, tapes his massage sessions for posterity. There's a hot tub session with an enthusiastic redhead who bumps her head against the edge of the pool but gamely humps on. The voluptuous Annette Burger also makes an appearance, providing the only genuinely erotic moments of the movie. These tapes are supposed to be a source of clues for the ensuing homicide investigation but they probably work best to fuel the carnal impulses of the investigating detective and Landon.

Landon's stable is a veritable portfolio of favorites. Taylor St. Claire, fetching in black, has an appealing private dance, although it ends abruptly and inexplicably when she goes topless. Julie Strain breezes in from her duties as reigning Heavy Metal Amazon for one of her trademark sessions. And Shanna McCullough, in a rare crossover performance, looks tanned, trim, and terrific at forty.

Think of it simply as a mediocre art gallery. Some pretty pictures but not much in the way of inspiration. But even with this disappointing installment of the franchise, we're still lining up for `Masseuse 4'. Reminds us of something Samuel Johnson once said about the triumph of hope over experience.

I'm not sure if this falls into the category of compulsive fan but I thought that I'd add an update on this delicious redhead.

A recent issue of "Femme Fatales" (quite a resource for late-night cable viewers) has an interview and an update on LoriDawn Messuri (there's also a few uninspired photographs and one very beguiling shot of a naked LoriDawn).

The update is a movie called "Cruising Purgatory", with LoriDawn playing a stripper with bad dreams. A promising idea but don't expect this to show up at your local multiplex. Probably a straight-to-video release and, unless your local cable programmer is either very hip or also a fan, it may be a while before this shows up on the airwaves.

Whenever the Playboy logo appears on screen, the viewer is alerted that what follows will be professionally staged and directed. The cast will be attractive and will include some well-known people from the second or third tier (here it's Richard Grieco, on a break from shooting " A Night At The Roxbury"). Their acting will be above par, and the love scenes will be tastefully done, integral to the plot, and non-gratuitous. Think of it as an OSHA warning or the little note from the Surgeon General on that pack of Marlboros.

There's really not much here for fans of late-night cable weirdness. We have the story of a corporate drone who, with the help of Rent-A-Babe, re-invents himself for his tenth year reunion party, The rented babe however turns out to be a wicked and manipulative siren leading our poor sap into the ruin of Chapter 11. If you're looking for a compelling movie on the theme of a Wicked Woman leading a Good Man astray, "Out Of The Past" with Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer is the perfect choice. If you're looking for gratuitous nudity and cheap thrills, Playboy has a whole series of hot-body videos. But this trite hybrid is neither convincing drama nor sufficiently prurient trash.

The only wild card in this dull hand is the presence of Rochelle Swanson as the wicked woman, Charlene. Rochelle is a lush brunette, who could easily reign as Queen of Late-Night Cable Land, were it not for a certain deadly coyness. Exhibit A is a torrid private dance for our victim. Admittedly, she looks terrific in black and the garter-belt, stockings and high heels are a nice fetish touch. But after a few charming moves, only the bra disappears and the scene segues into another routine session of bumping bodies.

In Exhibit B, our hero comes home early and finds Charlene with her partner in crime, Josie (played by Sydney Coale Phillips). The suggestion is subtle; they look fetching in their midriff-baring outfits and presumably they weren't discussing Hegelian dialectic upstairs. But we never get to see the footage from the bedroom cam and so we wonder why the notion was introduced.

The final nail in the coffin has Charlene showing up at the office, wearing only a fur coat and bringing a mid-day snack. She quickly loses the coat and for a brief moment, the scene seems full of promise. We are treated to a lingering shot of her enchanting backside as she shows off the Daily Special. But as she moves in, the camera suddenly gets coy and hastily arranges contrivances to block any explicit views. It reminds me of that running gag in the Austin Powers' movies as Mike Myers, ostensibly nude, wanders through a room filled with objects strategically placed between the camera and his private parts. In Austin Powers One and Two, the device is funny and Freudian. Here it's just clumsy.

This Puritanism seems quaintly retro in a Nineties Playboy product. In the late Sixties, Playboy pushed at the edge of explicitness in men's magazines until full frontal nudity became commonplace. Now famous figure skaters and fading starlets routinely appear nude in Playboy and the other magazines look like Ob-Gyn Journals. Thirty years later, the camera demurely blocks an explicit shot, like a blushing geisha.

Part of the explanation may be in Rochelle's other film credits. The IMDb lists a lot of items with the words "secret" and "indecent" and numbers in their titles, all part of the Shannon Tweed franchise. It's hard to imagine that, not long ago, Shannon Tweed was the benchmark for late-night cable. But then again, not long ago, 166MHz was considered to be a powerhouse processor.

Times change.