Hello J360 Legion!
It’s J and when I’m not running J360 Productions, I’m often watching movies (especially bad ones!). If you like neo-noir/erotic thrillers like Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, Hand that Rocks the cradle, and Disclosure. Well this one wanted to join the same club and it missed the mark in various places due to horrible characterization, a slow uneven plot, and things that make you go “huh?”
Today’s lackluster stallion is called
Production Info located here and pictures use is courtesy of IMDB.com
Mortal Passions is a story about a man named Todd (Zach Gallagan, Billy from Gremlins) who inherits a mansion from his dead father and resides there to fix it up to live with his wife, Emily (Krista Errickson). Problem is his wife is an arrogant, snobby, whiny, nymphomaniac who pretty much does the opposite of what Sharon Stone does remarkably in Basic Instinct.
She has the original idea of killing off Todd so that she can collect the insurance money, apparently Todd is worth more dead than alive and by his acting you’d probably wished he was bumped off. Anyways Todd is going through severe depression due to his father’s death and has to often visit a psychiatrist (Jordan Perry, Villian from Tron) to be convinced that life is worth living. Meanwhile his lovely wife, Emily is scheming and seducing different men to make her plan come together in various laughable ways. A particular lover of hers named Darcy was going to commit the deed and failed miserably by having a few drinks before coming over to do Todd in, causing him to drop the gun (-laugh track-) before Emily found him and the two actors playing the role in this scene try to keep it together but fail… as Emily was corpsing but we’ll skip that part of the review.
After that botched attempt by the devious duo, Todd’s older brother Burke (Some blond guy) comes back into town and plays the role of the family bad ass…Whereas Todd is the good son, Burke would be the one that daddy never hugged. Burke seem to knew what Emily was all about especially with her behavior around Todd and while he was having his hazy depression lapses, Burke was following Emily’s trail. Burke headed to the cocktail bar where she worked, and eventually found where Emily was being intimate with Darcy. Burke & Darcy have that moment in 80s action films where one tries to be more bad-ass then the other but the dialog was so bad I can’t put it in this review. So Burke shot Darcy with his gun and had a bit of perplexed anger, Emily saw this as a moment to seduce and it worked as Burke made “lust” with Emily.
I could’ve turned the channel off but I had to see what happens next.
I was thinking in my head that nothing could be more stupid than this, but I was wrong.
Eventually Burke & Emily hide Darcy’s body, Todd at this point was starting to figure out something was going on and he begins to do something in the plot (Not Much). He finds out that Darcy was his wife’s lover but didn’t know that Darcy is dead. Eventually Todd meets up with a woman who noticed Burke from the bar earlier. She was a friend of Darcy who performs in theater acting and for some reason (probably plot filler) is looking for him. Todd seems better matched for her because in a way she seems to be just as insane as him but after much talk about Darcy’s disappearance, Emily’s strange behavior and Burke’s aggressive methods. The two “slowly” began to put plot pieces together in this movie that are painfully obvious to us as an audience,and I do mean painful.
Todd and the woman managed to dig up Todd’s garden seeing the remains of a body and what appeared to be Darcy down there, leading to a hilarious outbreak of Todd saying “Leave me alone” to the Woman and She runs off screen to nowhere. The next day,Todd spoke with Burke, loosely talking about how Emily & Darcy were trying to kill him. Eventually Todd reveals he knows Burke killed Darcy and Burke replies that he did it for him (blah blah blah).In the end the two brothers were arguing with each other causing a deep rift between them however once Burke learns that Emily wanted to kill Todd as she lied to him too, He prepares to get revenge on her. Meanwhile Todd leaves the mansion and confronts the psychiatrist putting up a very good defensive act at this moment because it is the only good acted scene in this movie.
Back at the estate, Todd reunites with the woman from before who was the only ally to him and she tries to blackmail him about Darcy’s Death while convinces him to tell her to blow off and goes back in the mansion. Meanwhile the psychiatrist confronts Emily to find out the whole truth about Darcy, the foregone fact that she is a nymph, and why she slept with Burke to stop him from giving her that well delayed whupping she deserved through this whole picture. Once the truth is revealed, the psychiatrist attempts to call the police but is shot death by crazy Emily. You can tell the storyline is weak because at every attempt for karma to get Emily it never happens (character plot armor can be frustrating).
Once she’s done killing expendable side characters, Emily comes back to the mansion where Burke was preparing to leave. The two have a confrontation again where she plans to use the same gun to kill him. Burke isn’t afraid of Emily and smacks her which arouses Emily who in turn tries to persuade Burke to take her again as he hits her (he does this about 7 times in the film). Todd jumps into the fray, leading to a humorous fight between the brothers (again).
This movie loves to show the brother vs. brother aspect a lot because the two are constantly at each other in almost every scene they shared, except for when Burke came home. Really they both should’ve went after Emily in my opinion because this is the third act of the film but not my movie, so not my problem.
Todd tells Burke to blow off causing another rift between them but Burke leaves behind the money he was going to take with him. Todd finally grows a set and banishes Emily out of the mansion (YES!) and wallows in his self-pity (Which he did throughout most of this movie).
Todd sat against a wall mumbling to himself while holding a gun to his head but he doesn’t fire and instead goes upstairs for a bit. Emily decides to hitch a ride with Burke as she figures he has taken some of the family fortune with him. As Burke & Emily were driving away Todd gets a knock at the door and he opens it to see the Woman who tried to blackmail him trying to apologize and Todd says
“This isn’t a good time, leave me alone”
The Woman (We never know her name) just walks back to her car with a sad look on her face and Todd goes back to his seat and looks at his mansion and says to himself
“I should hire a interior decorator…”
Boring as hell…You would hope the movie ends here right? Wrong.
Here comes the best part of the movie because…
BURKE DRIVES HIM AND EMILY OFF OF A RAVINE TO KINGDOM COME, HALLUJAH !!!!
Closing Thoughts
I don’t know how many times I cursed at this film but its more then I ever did in a lifetime. While I know Gremlins 2 is years off, Zach Gallagan is a better actor than how he performed in this, same with Jordan Perry.
Unfortunately everyone else was just blah, even the ladies in the movie though I’m wondering if the woman who played Emily was really acting or if that’s her going through a psychotic break?
The film tried to be an”Erotic Thriller” but there were more laughs than thrills which isn’t a good thing and you’re just bored out of your mind wondering when the brothers will stop Emily’s “terror.”
If I was to give this movie one rating: it would be the middle finger.