8MM 2: Perversions fatales

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

David (Johnathon Schaech) and Tish (Lori Heuring) are a couple in Budapest, on business commitments and staying at a luxury hotel. One night, they meet an attractive woman at a nightclub and invite her back to their place, where they end up in a threesome. All is well, until David receives some negatives in the mail and he and Tish end up being blackmailed. But when some people involved in the deception are found murdered, things get messy and they are forced to enter the seedy underground world of pornography and hardcore bondage to track down the woman who may hold the key to everything.

Whereas the original film dealt with the concept of snuff films, this straight to DVD sequel deals with the more wholesome (!!!) theme of threesomes and sleazy sex. It plays like a porn film, a cheap piece of titillation with plenty of hot T/A action going on. If this sounds like your idea of a good film, you'll probably like it, but you'd probably be more at home in a porn shop than a video store.

This tries to copy the original film's dark and voyeuristic feel, but while it does a pretty good job of this, it still can't hold up to that of the original's. It has an apathetic story, with a dodgy narrative flow. And compared to Cage, Schaech comes across as interminably wooden.

Better than I thought it'd be, I suppose, and better than your average one of these DVD direct sequels that seem to be coming out a lot these days, but really, haven't we seen enough? **

1st watched 2/9/2008, 4 out of 10(Dir-J.S. Cardone): Sexual political thriller that doesn't really succeed in any of these areas very well except early on where there are some interesting soft-core scenes. The movie starts off portraying a couple exploring their sexual fantasies amidst their work environments or wherever and whatever suits their fancy. The couple takes an excursion to a retreat and bathhouse where they run into a woman that's willing to be a part of a three-some and fulfill some of their fantasies. At this point, we only know that this couple is well off but we don't know until they return that the fiancé is part of a well-to-do political family. The man hopes to be on the rise to the point of possibly getting a congressional seat after the marriage. They then receive a package in the mail from an anonymous source with explicit pictures of their encounter at the bath house and their qwest begins as to how and why they were filmed, who sent the package, what they want, and how to clear their names before any of this gets out. This qwest becomes an obsession that leads them deeper into seedier worlds and takes a lot of their time, to the point where their friends & family wonder what they're doing all day and why they look rundown all the time. This movie is interesting at times but drifts into ridiculousness as they personally seek out the problem instead of getting the police involved early on because of their pride. This mistake, of course, keeps the movie going. The performances are fine despite the no-name cast but the lunacy of the situation overrides and the movie starts to become ho-hum about ½ the way through. And of course, they throw in a twist at the end that defies and challenges everything that happened prior(as is the norm these days when they don't know what else to do to spice up the movie). This doesn't help this movie one bit, though.

After seeing the movie in a class of mine and having a talk with the filmmaker, I found out exactly why the film bombed the way it did. The creators of the movie had no intention to call the film "8MM 2." Originally, the film was called "The Velvet Side of Hell" but was changed at the last minute by Sony Pictures to 8MM 2 without letting the filmmakers have any say in the matter. By doing that, it screwed them out of theatrical releases and doomed it to a straight to video release with minimal advertising.

Again, this is from the filmmaker's mouths, not mine, so I really can't say what is truth, and what is hype.

If you look at the film as "Velvet Side of Hell," it isn't THAT bad. It isn't great, but it is not god awful. It would basically just be a B-movie that likes to show boobs. But as a sequel to "8MM," the film fails terribly.

This is not at all a bad movie, if you drop the following expectations:

• 8mm sequel?? It has nothing to do with 8mm, the movie with Nicolas Cage.

• Story? The plot is not hugely elaborate, it's a blackmailing story which takes a slight twist at the end.

• Actors? Acting should have been with more heart and more convincing.

Other than that, it's a highly enjoyable movie. It's full of masterfully photographed erotic, film-noir atmosphere, very nice on-location footage from Hungary and an excellent soundtrack.

Although the story has its deficits, it serves well for generating a big deal of suspense. Much of the suspense originates from the psychological interplay between the different "opponents" in the movie. It's not about dull action scenes or car hunts.

Altogether, still worth a 7. Good time watching.

This is a beautifully filmed suspense drama showcasing some of the splendid scenery of Budapest. However, it's also a barely credible tale of a rich and over-educated couple who live in Hungary and are in the midst of planning their high society wedding. When the couple is blackmailed as a result of engaging in the three-way tryst, the full degree of their ineptitude becomes the focus of the story.

And that's where the film's credibility becomes strained-no one is that criminally stupid! Not even if you have a wealthy dad who's also the American ambassador, and who has "bailed you out of trouble" your whole life, as is the case with the female lead. It's challenging to think that a diplomatic lawyer and his oh-so-gracious bride to be lack the basic street smarts needed to extricate themselves from the unknown blackmailer's scheme. What they actually do is jump through all the hoops demanded of them. At every juncture of the film, the pair "strategizes" on how to turn the tables on the unknown blackmailer; and with each ill-conceived strategy, they only succeed in getting deeper and deeper into despair.

Toward the last part of this annoyingly naive cat-and-mouse plot, the husband is taken hostage when he finally agrees to pay the blackmailer. By that point, most viewers will probably have guessed what the answer to the mystery is.

The acting by Jonathan Schaech, Bruce Davison, Julie Benz, and others is adequately convincing. And though Lori Heuring's acting is also on point, her character of the witless and superficial girlfriend lacked literary believability. Screenplay writer Robert Sullivan and author Dylan Tarason concocted a worthwhile plot, but unfortunately populated it with simple-minded and un-relatable protagonists.