Red Nights

This direct-to-video effort from the late 80's/early 90's is movie kind of like "Mortal Passions", a low-budget and vaguely sexy movie that is doomed to be lost among a glut of "erotic thrillers" that flooded the low-end video market about that time. Like that movie though it is a slightly different animal, definitely low-budget but longer on plot with interests beyond the purely prurient. It could kind of be seen as a late 80's version of a film noir with a downbeat, fatalistic atmosphere, but set in La-la Land during the 80's yuppie cocaine craze.

A young man (Christopher Parker) has come to LA from the Midwest to see a friend and try to get into acting. His acting dreams, of course, don't pan out though, and he finds his friend strung-out on cocaine and in debt to an obnoxious cocaine dealer named "Bruce". He briefly falls in love with an equally struggling, semi-porno actress, but their relationship quickly goes south because, among other things, she has to stop during sex to take phone calls from her agent. His only real friend is a local bartender played by 70's exploitation tough guy, William Smith. Eventually tragedy occurs and he turns into a "Taxi Driver" vigilante type.

Christopher Parker won't remind anybody of Robert DeNiro, nor will the rest of the cast. Smith is good, but he has a pretty small role. The girlfriend "Betty" has a nice body, but it's pretty unclear whether the character herself is a bad actress or the actress playing her is. The sleazy coke dealer is pretty realistic and convincing though. Like most "erotic thrillers" this has plenty of nudity in it, including a gratuitous strip-club scene, but it's real raison d'etre seems to be as a scathing criticism of cold and heartless Hollywood and all the innocent dreams that get broken there. It is fairly realistic I guess (except I seriously doubt someone would accidentally walk into an audition for MALE porno actors, like the protagonist does here). Good luck finding this, but see if you get a chance.

Twenty-two year Randy Douglas (Christopher Parker) travels from New Hampshire to Hollywood to attain cinema stardom, and is met in the film capital by an old New England friend, David, who promptly introduces the artless youth to local night life, with which Randy seems only too eager to participate, although quickly becoming aware that fame as a movie star will be very difficult to achieve. This is, of course, a general theme utilized in countless motion pictures, but this production does not begin to satisfy fundamental requirements of continuity, instead developing into an exploitation affair, with virtually all shooting being done on and about Hollywood Boulevard as Randy is exposed to caricatures of Hollywood's common types, all depicted with jaundice in a work that lacks character development and motivation. The point that is apparently to be made is one offering irony, but the film is poorly scripted and directed with a result that insufficient sympathy or even interest is warranted for any of the characters, whose behaviour lack rationale and at times is ridiculous, as during a scene wherein police personnel engaged by a barricaded suspect situation allow untrained civilians to become directly involved. Scoring is provided in cookie cutter fashion by Tangerine Dream and the acting is, taken all in all, uninspired, although Tom Badal creates his part well as a narcotics dealer with whom Randy unwillingly becomes entangled; good work, also, is apparent from many of the crew in spite of a skimpy budget, but overmuch emphasis upon sleaze clearly lowers the worth of the picture.