Deadly Embrace (1989)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Sadly Over-hyped

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

This movie belongs to Ty Randolph, who pulls off an acting coup in her portrayal of the seamless fusion of dominance and dependence in the personality of a predator, Charlotte Morland, who goes after the newly hired houseman Chris (played by Ken Abraham) while her despicable husband Stuart Morland (Jan Michael Vincent), who is only home on weekends, strings along his trampy secretary until he can decide "what to do with my wife" and Chris's sweet, not-too-bright girlfriend Michelle (Linnea Quigley), who loves Chris very much, can't wait to hook up with him in his new digs.The result is a triple triangle: the Morlands and his secretary; the same Morlands and Chris; and Charlotte, Chris, and Michelle. What could possibly go wrong? Although one part of the ending is revealed early on, it doesn't spoil the final twists. Quigley is adorable and believable, making you want to keep Michelle from harm; Vincent's one-note performance I judge to be good because every time Morland speaks I hate him more; and Jack Carter is good as Morland's lawyer though Ruth Collins is wooden as his secretary. Just for Ty Randolph and the final surprises, I think this movie is worth seeing despite its flaws.The main weak spot is Chris, in two areas: script and casting. The Morlands are domineering people who make things happen; but the story is centered on Chris, a guy things happen to. With every development you're thinking he should know better. And the actor, Ken Abraham, can't seem to find the character--he wanders through various character types and fails to react at critical points. There's a good deal of movie-maker artifice too, especially the intrusive fantasy clips; they work when they tell us Chris fantasizes Michelle in all situatins, but the ones with Michelle Bauer as the "goddess of sex" confuse the story.

Beautiful, but horny and neglected Beverly Hills wife Charlotte Moreland (well played by foxy brunette cougar Ty Randolph) puts the moves on hot young stud gardener Chris Thompson (likable hunk Ken Abraham). Meanwhile, Charlotte's slimy businessman husband Stewart (Jan-Michael Vincent at his most cranky and sleazy) tries to figure out a way to divorce her without losing half of everything he owns. Director David DeCoteau relates the pleasingly lurid story at a snappy pace while pouring on the delicious gratuitous female nudity and scorching soft-core sex with highly satisfying frequency. Perky cutie Linnea Quigley supplies loads of charm and energy as Chris' sweet aspiring actress girlfriend Michelle (and she gets naked several times as well!). The ever-scrumptious Michelle Bauer provides yummy additional bare distaff skin in the tailer-made role of the Female Spirit of Sex. Jack Carter contributes a lively turn as shrewd lawyer Evan Weiss. A pronounced voyeuristic element gives the picture an extra trashy impact. Richard Gabai's perfectly seamy script comes through with a decent surprise bummer ending. Both Thomas L. Callaway's glossy cinematography and Del Casher's moody score are on the money solid. Good junky fun.

Wow, what can i say about this movie, Jan-Michael Vincent reportedly had just come out of rehab and accepted this movie, apparently he needed some fast cash, he actually looks quite healthy, tanned, thin, fit, and looks the California surfer type with his sun bleached hair, his scenes with Jack Carter are the only parts that give this film any credibility and in fact, seemed, that many of those scenes (if not all) were filmed separately, as the film cuts to JMV then Carter but i found it to contain quite a bit of humor, though this wasn't it's intention. The actor, who plays Chris (Chris Bauer)seems to me, like this was probably his first acting job and was probably paid scale (if that) in such a low budget production, the scenes between him and Linea Quigley are embarrassing stale with a total lack of chemistry between two people very unfamiliar with each other, it's also obvious that there was no rehearsal and the scenes were taken on one shot (again keeping the budget down) the so-called mansion looks middle-class at best, this film was shot in 3 days and looks it. The premise has JMV looking for a way out of his marriage, in his words "The novelty has worn off" and wants to take up with his moronic, brain-dead secretary, while his sex-starved wife (Ty Randolph) does everything within her womanly power to seduce the young Chris (Chris Bauer) and gets her wish but Chris has regrets about it when Qugley comes to visit, because it was filmed so quickly and to give it legit running time, it has fantasy soft core scenes adding additional minutes of footage probably to get it distributed, but you'll need to FF through these to get the predictable ending, JMV at one time was considered a viable star but why in the world he didn't concentrate on interesting minor character roles, in major studio releases, instead of top billing in trash like this, is beyond me.

Jan Michael Vincent puts in one of Hollywood's most wooden performances as a philandering husband bizarrely determined to resist the obvious charms of his wife, the gorgeous Ty Randolph.Randolph manages to skilfully combine poignancy and a charged eroticism to her role as the neglected and ultimately disturbed wife.Ultimately, the poor plot and acting performances of the other principals condemns Deadly Embrace to mediocrity.