the audience applauded

Absolutely Brilliant!

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

There are some real nice aspects to this film, which make the confusing editing and the sudden, mediocre ending to be real disappointments. How do you rate a flick that has a whole lot of naked dancing and a bunch of dialogue leaving you saying, "Hey that's clever," but where they didn't bother to perfect it? The other reviewers averaged it out to the middle of the scale, while I placed it higher. There aren't enough clever movies made, and that weighed more with me. And I guess I needed my fix of nude women. I didn't find these gals very attractive but that's fairly realistic for strip clubs. Perhaps this flick will inspire the physically impaired to consider becoming cops. This--witty dialog but blah plotting--is sort of backwards to the way I usually find things.

Lurid serial killer drama, set in and around a neon-lit stripclub called Paragon, focuses on a sexy, tender-hearted dancer, Shady(Maria Ford, in flaming red hair and lipstick)who has surreal dreams of attacking her friends(..those that strip along with her at the club)with a razor blade from the mouth. To console Shady is fellow stripteaser Cassandra(Karen Mayo-Chandler), for whom she's living with temporarily. Sergeant Decker(Eb Lottimer)falls in love with Shady, while investigating the case, providing complications as signs point to her as the possible killer, as the incriminating evidence surfaces(..Shady awakens after murders with blood on her lip after experiencing each ominous nightmare featuring a figure in black shroud and mask, a razor blade appearing from her mouth, caressing Shady's bottom lip as blood emerges). It could actually be someone else possibly drugging Shady(..one of her fellow strippers perhaps?), maybe even the club's lighting technician and announcer, Ike(Tom Ruben)known for peeping in windows, who's also infatuated with her.Director Katt Shea Ruben creates a neo noir atmosphere and Decker is modeled after hard-boiled, trench-coat detectives. There are a series of strip-tease numbers and those involved are equipped with beautiful bodies. Very few places, mostly tightly confined rooms, are used in the film such as the club, Decker's small office, the street corner outside the club, and Cassandra's pad. Paragon's dressing room, where we see the strippers bicker with each other, most of them with miserable lives, hating the job, but recognizing that this might be all there is, and it does pay well, enlightens us in regards to how demanding and unfulfilling this line of work really is. It's obvious Ruben had limited resources and budget to work with so she does the best she can with what she has. The dream sequences are shot in B&W photography often corresponding with the actual murders, shot mostly point-of-view through the killer's perspective as the victims are startled by their attacker(..establishing that the killer is someone they know). The murders are basically a razor slash to the throat, the one responsible moving it by their tongue, using the mouth to administer the slice. Not excessively violent, we see the slice happen once or twice. It seems Ruben is more concerned with her characters and their plight(..not to mention, the work itself in the seedy, cramped Paragon where tables feature men desiring lap dances so the girls can be up, close, and personal), the case just so happens to interfere with the mundane, daily grind. I wasn't particularly blown away by the performances or the characters themselves, but admired the attempt to make something interesting out of the material that would become a staple for soft-core flicks in the 90's(..murders centered around a strip club with the victims often dancers). Maria Ford has a fantastic body, but this isn't one of her finest performances..she's better at portraying aggressive women, than an innocent caught in the web of a dangerous socipath.

The dance numbers this time around are better pulled off and they are not as excessive, but this sequel is still inferior to the original. This time around another batch of dancers at a strip club are killed off one by one. However, one of the dancers has visions of the killings and fears she may be the killer.This sequel lacks the gritty look, character development, and dialogue that made the original so good to begin with. The performances are nowhere near as good as the original either, but they certainly are adequate. This time around there is a lot of flash, but not much substance. Pity.