Brad reviews DOUBLE THREAT (1992), starring Sally Kirkland, Andrew Stevens and Sherrie Rose!

Posted on November 14, 2025 by Bradley Crain

Sally Kirkland stars as Monica Martel, a sexy but aging Hollywood actress who’s in lust for, and obsessed with, her boy toy, Eric Cline (Andrew Stevens). When Monica is given a chance for a big comeback, she uses her pull to get Eric the leading man role. Still, the producer Crocker Scott (Anthony Franciosa) insists that the film contain a lot of sexy scenes and Monica isn’t exactly in her prime anymore. Needing this big break, director Stephen Ross (Chick Vennera) hires a model of visual perfection, the lovely Lisa Shane (Sherrie Rose), to serve as a body double for Monica on the production. Soon Eric and Lisa are having a hot affair while Monica is being left out in the cold. Not one to accept being the odd woman out, Monica hires a private investigator to track the oversexed young lovers. When Lisa’s car blows up, luckily for us viewers she isn’t in it at the time, you can’t help but wonder if Monica has decided nobody will make a fool of her again. Not so fast though when Detective Robert Fenich (Richard Lynch) shows up on the scene carrying a serious grudge against Eric… something to do with a murderous event that occurred in San Francisco a few years earlier. It’s not easy to determine who’s hateful and who’s just horny in this sizzler from Director David A. Prior.

This was my first viewing of the 1992 erotic thriller, DOUBLE THREAT, but I’ve seen plenty of movies like it before. I was a teenager when the erotic thriller became a staple at the video store. Actor Andrew Stevens, who had starred with my hero Charles Bronson in the films DEATH HUNT (1981) and TEN TO MIDNIGHT (1983) became a star of the genre with his roles in the NIGHT EYES and SCORNED series. I remember talking my mom into letting me rent NIGHT EYES (1990) because “the guy from 10 TO MIDNIGHT is in it.” Needless to say, she wasn’t happy when the “erotic” part of the erotic thriller started, and we never finished the film. To be completely honest, outside of the budget differences and the overall talent on display, a film like DOUBLE THREAT isn’t that much different than a movie like BASIC INSTINCT (1992), which I’m sure served as an inspiration when you consider that both films came out in 1992. There is a scene where Andrew Stevens walks into a club and sees Sherrie Rose dancing provocatively that reminded me of the corresponding scene in BASIC INSTINCT with Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone. And when it’s all said and done, the plots of these types of films are all pretty ridiculous. This one’s a real doozy, and looking back there are ample clues, but I somehow didn’t figure out the big twist at the end.

I must say that Sally Kirkland and Sherrie Rose, separated in age by 25 years, are both extremely appealing in DOUBLE THREAT as the actress on the comeback trail and her beautiful young body double. This is the first time I’ve watched one of these straight-to-video erotic thrillers in a long, long, time, so I may just need to revisit a few more just for old times’ sake! Besides the sexy ladies, this specific film intrigues me due to the presence of Andrew Stevens as the ladies’ man whose motives aren’t completely clear until later in the film. A consistent presence in Charles Bronson films of the early 80’s, Stevens has had quite the career as an actor, director, and producer, almost exclusively in low budget fare like this. He’s a good-looking guy and a pretty good actor, and I’m always glad to see him involved in a production. He’s recently written and directed a documentary about his mother called STELLA STEVENS: THE LAST STARLET (2025) that I have on my watch-list. Honestly, the full cast of DOUBLE THREAT is pretty stacked, with actors like Rychard Lynch (INVASION USA), Gary Swanson (VICE SQUAD), and Anthony Franciosa (TENEBRAE) all bringing some additional class to the proceedings in their various roles.

At the end of the day, you fall in one of three categories when it comes to a movie like DOUBLE THREAT: you’re the kind of person who wants to watch a low budget erotic thriller; you’re the kind of person who says that you don’t want to watch a low budget erotic thriller, but then you watch one anyway; or you’re the kind of person who truly doesn’t want to watch a low budget erotic thriller. In my case, there’s a certain nostalgia that I associate with these types of video store genre films that were a dime a dozen in my youth. As silly as it all is, I must admit that I enjoyed DOUBLE THREAT and proudly fall in the first category!

Rest in peace, Sally Kirkland.

Raw Justice (1994, directed by David Prior)

Posted on April 21, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

When his daughter is strangled, New Orleans Mayor David Stiles (Charles Napier) hires ex-cop-turned-bounty-hunter Mace (David Keith) to keep an eye on the main suspect, Mitch McCullum (Robert Hays). What the mayor doesn’t know is that his daughter’s murder was ordered by Deputy Mayor Jenkins (Stacy Keach) and now, both Mace and Mitch are being stalked by a crooked cop named Atkins (Leo Rossi). Also getting involved in this mess is a hooker with a heart of gold named Sarah (Pamela Anderson), who is angry because Mace earlier stole his clothes while trying to get the jump on a bail jumper. Sarah and Mitch soon fall in love. Mace is good with a gun and Mitch turns out to know karate (because he watched a lot of Bruce Lee movies growing up) but the film’s high point is when one of the bad guys is taken out with a giant novelty dart.

The plot is dumb and David Keith comes across as being a discount version of Patrick Swayze but this film does give the always likable Robert Hays a good role and fans of Pamela Anderson (and you know who you are) will definitely appreciate at least two scenes in the movie. Actually, Pamela Anderson isn’t bad in Raw Justice. She’s mostly there for her looks but she still has a likable and energetic screen presence. Otherwise, this is a typical low-rent David Prior production, complete with action scenes featuring guns that never run out of bullets (unless it’s convenient for the plot) and a score that is pretty much the same guitar riff over and over again. It’s not exactly good but it is entertaining if you’re in the right mood.

This film was also released under the title Good Cop Bad Cop, which doesn’t make much sense because neither Keith nor Hays is playing a cop.

Guilty Pleasure No. 67: Aerobicide (dir by David A. Prior)

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It doesn’t get more 80s than 1987’s Aerobicide, a rather ludicrous slasher film that is also known as Killer Workout.

The clients and the staff at Rhonda’s Work-Out are in danger. People are being murdered inside the gym, left and right. One member of the gym is slashed to death in the showers. Another one is beaten to death with a barbell while his friend is killed with a very large safety pin. One instructors ends up hanging in a closet while another is stabbed to death in a locker room. A group of teens show up to spray graffiti on the outside of the club and they all end up getting murdered as well.

Most people would assume that, with all of those murders going on, that the place would be closed down or, at the very least, people would stop frequenting the gym. But no, the opposite happens. Every murder is followed by an aerobics class, in which the camera shamelessly lingers on the lycra-clad participants, none of whom seem to be particularly concerned about working out at a crime scene. ( If your body’s looking too big, one of the film’s many songs tells us, Like a hippo or a pig/ Gotta workout/ gotta work out….) The gym’s owner, Rhonda Johnson (Marica Karr), doesn’t seem to be particularly concerned about the gym getting a bad reputation as a result of all the murders. Instead, she’s more annoyed with her surviving instructors, snapping at one, “Stop showing off your tits and that tight little ass!” Personally, I would think looking good would be a top priority for someone working at a gym but apparently, Rhonda feels differently.

(Then again, if people were being murdered at my gym, I’d probably cancel my membership, despite the fact that my gym is only a few blocks away from my house and most of the people who go there are relatively cool. That said, the main reason why I signed up for a membership was so my sister could get a discount on her membership fees. Personally, I prefer running.)

Even if Rhonda refuses to close the gym, you would think that Lt. Morgan (David James Campbell) would make sure that the gym had a full-time police presence. Eventually, Morgan does assign one policeman to watch the gym but that’s only after several murders have already occurred and that one policeman’s presence doesn’t really do much good. Then again, Lt. Morgan never comes across as being a particularly good cop. Morgan is spectacularly bad at his job, which wouldn’t be a huge problem if not for the fact that Morgan is also the hero of the film. Eventually, he does figure out that the murders are connected to a tragic tanning bed accident but it’s hard to say how exactly he managed to do that. Rather than actually showing us Lt. Morgan gathering clues and drawing conclusions, the film just has him randomly blurt stuff out.

It’s all pretty ridiculous but, because the film is such a film of it’s time, it’s also rather fascinating. Killer Workout may not have been the only or even the first film to combine Flashdance with slasher chills but it is the first one to feature a song with lyrics like, “It’s the perfect body you’re looking for/it’s aerobocide.” This is one of those films where you come for the big hair and the 80s fashions and the bass-heavy score and you stay for the ludicrous plot twists, the overacting, the overheated dialogue, and the out-of-nowhere plot twists that dominate the film’s final 30 minutes. It’s not necessarily a “good” film but I defy anyone to look away once it begins.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

Future Zone (1990, directed by David Prior)

Posted on May 7, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

David Carradine is back as super glove-wearing bounty hunter John Tucker in this sequel to Future Force!

Once again, it’s the future. In the future, everyone drives a car that was made in the 70s and spends most of their time in the abandoned warehouses that are meant to represent their places of business. Hard-drinking John Tucker meets and starts to work with the newest C.O.P.S. recruit, Billy (Ted Prior). Billy can shoot just as fast as Tucker and seems to know all about Tucker and his wife, Marion (Gail Jensen). That’s because Billy is from the future. As he explains it, some “friends of mine built a time portal,” and Billy used it to come back to the past and save Tucker from being killed by a bunch of criminals. Why is Billy so concerned about saving John Tucker? Did I mention that Marion is pregnant?

Future Zone is just as dumb as Future Force but it is set apart from the first film by its use of time travel. The best part of the movie is that neither John nor Marion are surprised to hear that Billy’s friends just happened to build a time portal. Nobody asks why they built a time portal or even how they built a time portal. The time portal is the most important thing about the movie but everyone shrugs off its existence. Are time portals a common thing in the future? Does everyone have a time portal? How does the time portal work? How is Billy able to go into the past at exactly the right moment? When it is time for him to go back to his time, how does he let his friends know? These are all good questions that no one asks.

The other thing that no one asks is why Tucker doesn’t wear his super glove all the time. His super glove can do anything, from shooting lasers to blocking bullets. If I had a super glove, I would wear it all the time. Tucker keeps it in the trunk of his car and only summons it at the last possible moment. Why even have a super glove if you’re not going to use it?

Sledgehammer (1983, directed by David A. Prior)

Posted on October 7, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

Long ago, an adulterous couple was beaten to death by someone weilding a sledgehammer while one of the victm’s 8 year-old son watched. Ten years later, a bunch of stupid college kids decide that the farmhouse would be a great place to throw a party. Great idea! After a lot of filler, including a length foodfight, one of the partiers tells the story of the murder and then suggests holding a seance so that they can talk to “ghosts and goblins.” Everyone agrees. At first, it seems like the seance is just an extended practical joke but soon, a killer with a sledgehammer shows up.

Sledgehammer was an early direct-to-video slasher film. It was directed by David A. Prior, who later went on to become one of the buseist DTV directors of the 80s and 90s. Starring in the film was Ted Prior, brother of David. Ted plays Chuck, who is not sure whether or not he wants to marry his fiancee, Joni (Linda McGill). There’s a scene where Chuck and Joni walk through a fied in slow motion. It adds nothing to the plot but it did add to the running time, which I imagine was the intent. There are, in fact, several slow motion sequences in the film. There’s so much slow motion that it’s hard not to laugh whenever the frames start to slow down. It’s an 87 minute film but it feels like at least 20 minutes of that is due to the slow motion.

Sledgehammer is slow and dumb but it’s hard to really dislike it. The cast may be amateurish but they also appear to be having a good time and the decision to film almost the entire movie in what was then David Prior’s apartment is actually likable in a low-rent, anyone-can-make-a-movie way. The opening credits are written in generic 80s computer font and the movie ends with a lengthy “You have been watching” style montage of the cast. It’s like bad 80s synthesizer music, cheesy but impossible to hate. As for the killer, he’s stuck wearing a cheap mask but the sledgehammer is a good weapon and it actually makes him more threatening than many of his knife and axe wielding comrades.

Sledgehammer is not great. It’s not even the best thing from the 80s to be called Sledgehammer. (David Rasche rules!) But it’s better than many other direct-to-video slashers. What it lacks in creativity, it maes up for with ethusiasm.

Cinemax Friday: Dead By Dawn (1998, directed by James Salisbury)

Posted on January 10, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Tim Marsh (Bill Ferrell) makes a lot of money and is married to the sexy and beautiful Wendy (Shannon Tweed) but he still thinks of himself as being a loser. He’d much rather have the life of his old high school buddy, Don White (Ted Prior). Don is a former baseball player who is opening his own car dealership and is married to a much younger woman named Kim (Jodie Fisher).

One day, Don lets Tim drive his BMW, which Don brags was a gift from Ed McMahon. Tim loves the car and, while driving it, feels more alive than he has in years. Don then offers to allow Tim to sleep with his wife. Tim says that there’s no way that he would ever cheat on Wendy but Don insists. Eventually, after a party to celebrate Don’s new business, Tim takes Don up on his offer. The next morning, after Tim has returned home to Wendy, someone murders Kim in her sleep.

Guess who the police suspect?

Dead By Dawn is typical of the low-budget, erotic thrillers that used to dominate late night Cinemax. Most of these films had plots that could best be described as neo-noir and Dead By Dawn is no different. Not much happens in Dead By Dawn. Since there are only four main characters and one of them dies about an hour into the movie, it’s pretty easy to figure out who is double crossing who. The main problem with the film is that it asks us to believe that Tim would cheat on Shannon Tweed instead of getting down on his knees every day and thanking God that a loser like him managed to marry … well, Shannon Tweed.

Not surprisingly, Shannon Tweed gives the film’s best performance. Because of her background as a Playboy playmate and her relationships with Hugh Hefner and Gene Simmons, it’s often overlooked that Shannon Tweed was a fairly good actress who had the ability to be both sexy and believable. She had a down-to-Earth quality to her that was lacking in most of the other direct-to-video vixens of the 90s. She was the sex symbol who you could imagine running into at the grocery store.

When compared to some of the other films that we all remember from late night Cinemax, Dead By Dawn is fairly tame but aficionados of Shannon Tweed’s film career should enjoy it.

Cinemax Memories: Raw Nerve (1991, directed by David A. Prior)

Posted on October 1, 2019 by Jedadiah Leland

Raw Nerve opens with a serial killer haunting Mobile, Alabama, using a pump action shotgun to shoot women in the face while they’re wearing red high heels. Race car driver Jimmy Clayton (Ted Prior, brother of this film’s director) has been having visions of the murders so he goes to the police and offers to help them out. Unfortunately for Jimmy, neither Detective Ellis (Jan-Michael Vincent!) nor Captain Gavin (Glenn Ford!!) believe in psychic phenomena so they toss Jimmy’s ass in jail. While Ellis’s ex-wife, Gloria (Sandahl Bergman!!!), tries to prove that Jimmy’s innocent, Jimmy’s mechanic (Randall “Tex” Cobb!!!!), takes an unhealthy interest in Jimmy’s teenage sister, Gina (TRACI LORDS!!!!!).

As you can tell from reading the paragraph above, the main thing that this film has going for it is a cast full of recognizable B-actors. Though none of them are really at their best, Raw Nerve is still your only chance to see Glenn Ford, Jan-Michael Vincent, and Sandahl Bergman all sharing scenes together. Unfortunately, despite all of the famous names in the cast, Ted Prior got the most screen time and he really didn’t have the screen presence to pull off either the role or the film’s loony final twist.

The best thing about Raw Nerve is that it features both Randall “Tex” Cobb and Traci Lords. Lords was a legitimately good actress, even if her past as a pornographic actress made it impossible for her to get the type of roles that she really deserved. Lords doesn’t get to do much in Raw Nerve but she does her best to make Gina into a real character instead of just a generic victim. Meanwhile, Randall “Tex” Cobb is a marvel as a biker who is never seen without a beer in his hand. When Cobb eventually leaves the movie, you miss him.

Raw Nerve was one of the many low-budget thrillers that came out in the 90s. Like many of these films, Raw Nerve was directed by David A. Prior and released by Action International Pictures, which shared both an acronym and a sensibility with American International Pictures. Though films like Raw Nerve may not have been great art, they were entertaining if you came across one of them on Cinemax. Where else were you going to see Tex Cobb and Jan-Michael Vincent battle it out at two in the morning?

Film Review: Day of the Warrior (dir by Andy Sidaris)

Posted on March 15, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Bring him in from the cold? That’s real spy talk. I love it when you do that.”

— J. Tyler Ward (Christian Letelier) in The Day Of The Warrior (1996)

Here’s two good things about the 1996 Andy Sidaris film, The Day of the Warrior:

First, a good deal of the film takes place in Dallas. As I’ve said before, I’m always happy to see my hometown in a movie, regardless of whether the movie is good or terrible. The Day of the Warrior not only reveals that a division of the Legion To Ensure Total Harmony And Law (a.k.a. L.E.T.H.A.L.) operates out of Dallas but also that it’s apparently headquartered on the top floor of the Bank America Plaza. Willow Black (Julie Strain, who had previously played a villain in three separate Sidaris films) is the new head of the Dallas branch. Apparently, her job largely consists of working out on the treadmill in her office.

The other good thing about The Day of the Warrior is that one L.E.T.H.A.L’s top agents is named Doc Austin (Kevin Light). Unlike the Abilene cousins that appeared in Sidaris’s previous films, Doc appears to actually be good at his job. For one thing, he can actually shoot a gun and his dialogue isn’t exclusively made up of painful double entendres. But my reason for liking Doc Austin is because he shares his first name with my cat and his last name with one of my favorite cities.

Anyway, the film itself is pretty stupid but you probably already guessed that as soon as I mentioned that it’s an Andy Sidaris film. The latest international super villain is a guy named the Warrior (Marcus Bagwell). The Warrior used to be an agent with the CIA but, when the Cold War ended, he discovered that he was out of a job. Because The Warrior’s mother was half-Native American, he decided to start wearing war paint and launched a career as a professional wrestler. However, The Warrior’s wrestling career was really just a cover so that he could safely travel the world and set up his own black market operation. He deals drugs. He sells weapons. He dabbles in human trafficking. “The SOB is even into pirating porno flicks,” Willow says. The Warrior takes the whole professional wrestling thing pretty seriously. At one point, he gives orders to his henchmen while standing in the middle of a wrestling ring.

(It’s also established that The Warrior lives in “north Dallas.” You probably actually have to be from Dallas to get the joke but, as far as Sidaris humor goes, it’s a good one.)

LETHAL has several agents working undercover in The Warrior’s organization. Apparently, they’re so deep undercover that not even Willow Black knows how to get in contact with them. (To be honest, that would seem to be kind of counterproductive but I’m not an international super spy so what do I know?) However, The Warrior has employed a computer hacker known as Hard Drive. (The Warrior calls him “Mr. Drive.”) When The Warrior manages to compromise LETHAL’s computer systems, Willow and her agents not only have to track down the people undercover but they also have to stop whatever it is that The Warrior is planning to do.

(The Warrior’s ultimate scheme was never easy to figure out. He seemed to spend most of his time flexing his muscles.)

As for the undercover agents, Doc Austin is investigating drug dealers in South Texas. Scorpion (Tammy Parks) and Shark (Darren Wise) are trying to infiltrate The Warrior’s Vegas-based porn operation. Fu (Gerald Okamura) is working as an Elvis impersonator. Cobra (Julie K. Smith) is working as an exotic dancer in Beverly Hills because of … reasons, I guess? Another agent, Tiger (Shae Marks) teams up with a pilot named J. Tyler Ward (Christian Letelier) because it’s not a Sidaris film without someone flying a plane over the bayous. To be honest, it seems like most of these people are just hanging out. I wouldn’t necessarily trust any of them with any national security secrets.

Anyway, this is pretty much a typical Sidaris film: stuff blows up, everyone gets naked, and there’s a lot of bad jokes. Even by the standards of a Sidaris film, the acting is incredibly bad. Remember those scenes in Boogie Nights where Mark Wahlberg and John C. Reilly played Brock Landers and Chest Rockwell? That’s about the level of talent that we’re talking about here. To illustrate, here’s a typical scene from Day of the Warrior:

In short, it’s no Hard Ticket to Hawaii but at least Dallas looks good.

A Movie A Day #266: Possessed by the Night (1994, directed by Fred Olen Ray)

Posted on October 1, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Howard Hansen (Ted Prior) is a best-selling horror writer who is suffering from writer’s block. With his agent, Murray (Frank Sivero), pressuring him to get something written, Howard decides to seek inspiration in Chinatown. When he steps into a curio shop and sees a grotesque, one-eyed blob floating in a jar of formaldehyde, Howard buys it. He hopes that the blob will give him an idea for a great book but instead, it just causes him to have nightmares and violent sex with his wife, Peggy (Sandahl Bergman).

Meanwhile, Murray is in debt with loan shark Scott Lindsey (Henry Silva) and Scott’s number one debt collector, Gus (Chad McQueen). Murray needs money and he needs it quickly. Murray sends his “secretary,” Carol (Shannon Tweed), to live with the Hansens and steal an unpublished romance novel that Howard wrote when he was just starting out as a writer. However, the one-eyed blob possesses Carol and she is soon climbing onto both Howard’s workout equipment and Howard! Soon everyone is under the influence of the one-eyed blob, Carol is forcing Howard and Peggy to make love while she holds the gun on them, and both Gus and Murray are sneaking around the house, trying to find the manuscript.

A movie that was once very popular on late night Cinemax, Possessed By The Night is a sometimes awkward but frequently entertaining horror/thriller hybrid from B-auteur Fred Olen Ray. Along with giving Frank Sivero a rare leading role (Sivero is best known for playing Frankie in Goodfellas and providing the inspiration for the Simpsons character of the same name), Possessed By The Night proves that no movie can be that bad when featuring both Sandahl Bergman and Shannon Tweed. When you watch a Fred Olen Ray/Shannon Tweed collaboration from 1994, you know what you’re getting and Possessed By The Night delivers.