Brincando com Fogo

The voluptuous Sybil Danning is apparently considered to be the chief attraction of this film for most viewers, but the plot also holds some inherent interest as a murder mystery. Unfortunately, the film is visually ugly and murky, and it's further hampered by a totally arbitrary, out-of-the-blue resolution. (**)

If I'd had a teacher at college who looked like Sybil Danning, I wouldn't have got much work done. Come to think of it, my teacher was a middle-aged man with a beard, and I still didn't get much work done. Aah, those lazy, hazy college days....

Eric Brown plays Jay Richard, the English student who gets to boff his beautiful, busty professor Diana in exchange for doing a few jobs: varnishing her yacht (not a euphemism) and sneaking into the home of her husband's mother and grandmother to scare the old women enough so that Diane and hubbie Michael (Andrew Prine) can be made executors of the estate. As is par for the course in this kind of trash, things don't go according to plan, with a masked murderer on the loose causing all sorts of problems for poor Jay.

The incredible Ms. Danning is the main reason to watch this otherwise lacklustre thriller, the hard-bodied hottie regularly stripping off to give us a good look at her amazing attributes. Without her to steam up the screen, the film would be largely forgettable, with a dumb plot that will have you screaming at Jay throughout, "Go to the police, NOW!" (but bang Diane one last time before you do).

What starts as a saucy slice of teenage wish-fulfilment slowly turns into a sub-standard '80s slasher, with the bodies piling up, and Jay teaming up with Diane to solve the mystery. The killer is fairly unimposing - far removed from unstoppable giants such as Jason and Michael Myers - and has a tendency to speak like Elmo from Sesame Street, which makes him even less scary.

Unmissable stuff for fans of its voluptuous, frequently naked female star, but as a thriller/horror, it's merely passable.

After recently viewing this somewhat forgotten 80's trashy movie. That's part mystery thriller, part slasher movie. The plot is quite interesting we get a student named Jay Richards who has an affair with his teacher Diana Stevens (Sybil Danning), but that's not all she and her husband want him to break into his elderly mothers house to scare them and of course that goes wrong when grandma pulls out a rifle and the young student runs away, and no sooner a masked stranger is already in the house ready to kill.

Okay this movie lacks logic and the storyline doesn't really make much sense, but the who dunnit angle does actually work, and I was geniually surprised when the killer is unmasked at the end. And the chemistry between Eric Brown and Sybil Danning was actually believable and spot on, and the sex scenes were probably the best thing about this movie. But there are several bad points to this movie, like for a start the pacing is quick enough and I did find myself getting bored at times and a lot of the performances were awful and the death scenes simply weren't up to scratch, they lacked imagination like the scene where the girl gets hit with a baseball bat, was just painful and not for the right reasons.

But there are a few small blessings in this movie, like Sybil Danning is just simply beautiful and has a gorgeous body, and one of the only cast members to make an actual effort and Eric Brown was okay he had the innocence wide boy routine rather well, despite some rubbish dialogue.

All in all "They're Playing With Fire" is not a terrible movie, in fact I found it quite fun and stupid at the same time, but I couldn't help that feel that if this movie was in more capable hands, then this could have been a hell of a lot better.

But I guess you'd be hard press not to take the risk of getting burnt! "I don't know what he sees in her?" Huh! Well simply who would want to knock back the advancements of the Austrian born blonde buxom Sybil Danning. Oh she sizzles and it's difficult not to ogle, as the director takes every opportunity to focus on her curvy shape in a very desirable manner. Plenty of instances we find Danning in the buff and everything seems to play secondary to her T&A.

The highly attractive English professor Diane Stevens seduces her gullible student Jay in a plan crafted by her husband Michael to inherit his family's fortune. However things turn pear shape when murder becomes apart of it.

In the 80s Eric Red was living every teenage boy's wet dream, as only years before he was getting it on with another European goddess Sylvia Kristel in "Private Lessons". So the hormones go crazy once again. But while the two films share some similarities, "They're Playing with Fire" is less light-headed being a lot more sleazy and spiteful in mixing elements of popular teenage sex comedies and jarring slasher traits. Holding this exploitation together is a deviously plotted murder-mystery soapish narrative. Even with the paranoid reactions, deceitful manipulation and masked intentions where nothing seems quite as it is. It kind of gets obvious just who's behind it due to the minor red herrings and the clues that sprung up, so we're left to hang around to wait for the motivation for the homicidal madness. It's quite overlong in its quest to reach its messy, silly revelation too. As for the shocks they're surprisingly nasty and bloody, but still clumsily handled by director Howard Avedis and the eccentric script consists of plenty sharp stabs of irony. Covering the film's soundtrack is numerous cheese-grated rock ballads with the seductive title song leading the way. The acting is colourful enough; Danning is a talented actress than just a figure and her strong presence shows it. Red is fitting and Andrew Prine is great as her vain husband. Offering fine support are Paul Clemens, K.T Stevens, Dominick Brascia and Alvy Moore.

It's an odd, neurotic and junky combination altogether, but incredibly amusing nonetheless.

That Eric Brown, what a lucky dude. First in Private Lessons with Sylvia Kristel and then in They're Playing With Fire with Sybil Danning the boy is doing well with the cougars.

However other than those titillating sex scenes there's not much to recommend either film. Danning seduces Brown but that's at the behest of her husband Andrew Prine. They're both tired of sitting around and waiting for his mother and grandmother to die. They want Brown to break in and just scare the two women so they might sell the old mansion and give them some of the loot.

But then some hooded individual comes along and murders the two women and hides the bodies. A few more deaths follow before we learn the truth.

If it weren't for Sybil Danning's body and those two weapons of mass destruction she has interest would be minimal here. If that's your thing go for it.