Sexual Predator

Photographer J.C Gale (Richard Grieco) is found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for the erotic asphyxiation of a beautiful young woman, Lisa. He is given a suspended sentence and is put on parole, where he is assigned to report to Beth Spinella (Angie Everhart) from the Intensive Supervision Program. Her job is to monitor his probation and to assess if he is a threat to anyone else.

One minor detail is that Beth is the best friend of Gale's victim Lisa, and is hell-bent on proving he murdered her and will do it again. To accomplish her aim, she becomes involved with Gale in this erotic thriller, pushing him all the way to repeat his previous incident.

"I want to feel what Lisa felt."

Richard Grieco (21 Jump Street) is quite good in the role of Gale, however he does whisper most of his lines. This is perhaps the intention, but it is quite annoying at times. Angie Everhart plays her role well as the sexy official figure, attempting to lure the killer into committing the same crime again. The supporting cast is generally average but this is a good thing because you can normally pick the next victim by how bad they are or by how many lines they have.

This film comes across as a low budget project and even seems to balance on the borders of pornography (not that I would know what one looks like, of course!). The consequences of being a low budget production come across in the way of many factors. The cast is predominantly made up of little known actors and the acting can at times be a touch wooden. The script is sufficient, but did fall down at times with continuity. The scenery used is not the best, but it doesn’t really need to be as much of the action takes place in the bedroom.

The majority of people (like myself) will sit through this film with their finger on the stop button, ready to give up, but I would suggest that you stick with it 'til the end. I did come away from this thinking it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was while watching.

This is definitely not one for the kids, as there is a lot of nudity. Some may enjoy this and it is a big part of the film, but it did seem a little excessive to me. This is worth a look if you like erotic thrillers with an edge and others may enjoy it as something different from the norm. Perhaps it's best described as an adults only version of one of the many crime series' currently being shown on television.

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and not 16x9 enhanced, the best way to describe this vision is to call it a “telemovie�. Colours are vibrant and somewhat over-saturated with reasonable shadow detail. Grain is not too much of a problem, however there is definitely a softer look to this, more designed to heighten the eroticism one would suspect. Artefacts are not really an issue and there is no layer change on this single layer disc. There is a multitude of subtitles to choose from also, but a groan sounds the same in any language.

Audio available is a choice of Dolby Digital 2.0 in either English or German. Being unable to speak German I chose the English version. Audio was adequate while being nothing spectacular. Dialogue is clear at all times, even the whispering of Richard Grieco, and sync is never a problem. The music used was reasonably suitable, but I was waiting for the corny porn music to kick in (not that I would have recognised it, of course). Separation is used minimally and naturally the subwoofer gets a fairly quiet evening. All in all it is adequate and of the usual standard for a telemovie.

All we have on offer here are four Theatrical Trailers. There is the usual one for the main feature, Sexual Predator, and along with that are Forbidden Sins, Joe Dirt and Nowhere To Run. All are in full frame apart from Joe Dirt - this is in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. All run for approximately two minutes each. And that’s it as far as extras go.

This is one of those films where you wonder when it will end whilst watching it, but afterwards feel it wasn’t that bad. Quite simply, if you watch this and turn it off halfway through, you will think it was garbage. If you persist with it 'til the end, you will find it to be a watchable film, nothing out of the ordinary but watchable nonetheless. This seems to be the type of film that would be shown on US cable TV and I would suggest you give it a try if there is nothing else on offer.