Thu 17 May 2012
Archived Movie Review: BEDROOM EYES II (1989).
Posted by Steve under Crime Films , Reviews[2] Comments
BEDROOM EYES II. 1989. Wings Hauser, Kathy Shower, Linda Blair, Jane Hamilton. Director: Chuck Vincent.
Harry Ross is a guy who seems to have an inordinate amount of trouble with women. His ex-wife JoBeth evidently tried to murder him five years before, and now here she is, out of prison. His present wife Carolyn is still in a case of traumatic shock — something to do with another of Harry’s girl friends, Alexandria, who died in a hit-and-run accident the same night he broke up with her.
And now there’s Sophie, an artist who provides Harry with an overabundance of sympathy soon after he spots Carolyn (also a patron of the arts) in the passionate embrace of her own current discovery. (Nor is Sophie all she seems, either.)
Harry is also a successful stockbroker who, with his partner, is on the verge of making five million dollars in an illegal inside stock transaction. This makes him especially vulnerable to blackmail, say, but what actually happens is that he ends up being framed for murder, in a sloppy, murky sort of way.
The sexual activity pictured in this movie — it is rated “R” — is fast and perfunctory. There is also a considerable amount of of promiscuous violence — reason Number Two for the rating. Surprisingly, or perhaps not, each of these two factors often happen in close proximity to each other.
As far as the people in the movie are concerned, Wings Hauser and Linda Blair both seem to be veterans of this sort of film-making, and they each turn in an adequate, professional-looking job. The others in the cast have moments when they seem alive and functioning, but for the most part they seem to have only been pointed in the right direction, just before the cameras started to roll.
But then again, that’s why they’re called directors, right?
May 18th, 2012 at 12:52 pm
Sounds like a “guilty pleasure” kind of movie. When I first saw the title I thought “Someone made a sequel to that tepid Steve Gutenberg Rear Window rip off? Why?” But that movie was called Bedroom Window. There ought to be a law against these thrillers with sound alike names. How can I keep them all straight without checking imdb or Google?
May 18th, 2012 at 1:08 pm
I remember thinking that BEDROOM WINDOW was nicely filmed but that the story left me a little flat, but of course, as you say, John, I could be thinking of another movie altogether.
I’m sure I watched BEDROOM EYES II on Cinemax or one of the other premium cable channels. They used to show a lot of sexy thrillers late at night like this one, but from what I can tell, they don’t seem to make them like this any more.
Cinemax’s current late-night stock in trade seems to have completely given up on story, focusing instead on couples doing strange things in front of video cameras in even stranger positions. (The couples, I mean, but maybe the cameras, too.)
Ha! I’m getting nostalgic over 1980s schlock films.