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 THE FLESH
MERCHANT (Sub
Rosa) 1993. 90 Minutes. Not Rated. Detectives Darleen Paxton and Mac
Williamson have a big problem in
L.A.
Seems that there's a renegade
special forces guy turned white slaver in town and his name is Jack
Valentino. Accordingly, women
are turning up missing and it's up to the detectives to find out why.
Unknown to them there's a clock ticking away ruining their chances
for every minute they're stumbling through the city desperately grasping
for elusive clues. Once the
kidnapped women are through with their 'conditioning', Valentino's boss
Delambre (Don Stroud) will be in town for pick up of the goods. Realizing
that they might never find the people behind all these disappearances, the
detectives decide to ignore their superior's advice to drop the whole
thing. Paxton goes undercover
and is picked up by the white slavers.
Now Williamson is on his own and must solve a case that has been
eluding him and his partner for quite some time.
The
Flesh Merchant
is an amazing case of exploitative packaging.
It's advertised as a classic of the exploitation genre.
At first glance anyone might be willing to buy into this.
After all it does have Joe Estevez in a cameo and Don Stroud.
Anyone remember when Don Stroud was in good movies?
Me either. Now, I'm
just kidding. Sure Don used to
be a minor mover and shaker in the
Hollywood
scene, but now he's doing this crap. And
then there's Michelle Bauer. I
love Michelle Bauer. The woman
is gorgeous, funny and one of the original trio of scream queens.
The other two being Brinke Stevens and Linnea Quigley, of course.
She's totally hot and totally wasted in this flick.
I also found it bizarre that she's the dominatrix who trains the
new girls. No, that part's not
odd, it's odd that her character name is Kitty Genovese.
Now anyone worth their salt remembers the Kitty Genovese case.
When a young woman was raped and killed in front of an apartment
building in
New York
. It was stated that many
people were within earshot and probably plain view of the crime, yet no
one called the police. This
crime was revisited in the Watchmen
series by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.
Why in the world would the producers of this film see this as a
good idea? Seems twisted to
me. I saw a lot of borrowed things in this film.
There's a scene between two girls being forced to strip that is
almost word for word a scene from Last House
on the Left. I actually
had to go back and watch the scene and then put in my copy of House
on the Left. Yup!
Stole the damned scene outright. Now don't get me wrong.
Mike Tristano does a wonderful job as an armorer and weapons
handler for films. These are
important jobs that lend authenticity to movies.
Maybe Tristano should stick to those things that he does well as
opposed to directing which he is not very good at.
I watched this film twice. The
first time I had many distractions and probably watched about half of the
entire movie. I felt that this
was unfair at best and decided to give it my full attention the next day.
It's the least I can do for film makers giving us what they feel is
their best. After watching it
I realized that I hadn't missed anything.
The Flesh Merchant is
dull and lackluster in appearance and story quality.
Checking with imdb.com it appears that Mr. Tristano hasn't directed
in a couple of years, but is in some stage of production in over seven
films doing what he does best. Armorer
and weapons handler. Good for
him. The DVD gives us a crisp,
clean print of the film. In
addition there is a commentary that I haven't had the guts to listen to as
well as trailers for other Sub Rosa films.
In the
land
of
Sub Rosa
there are hits and misses; this one misses by a mile.- Douglas Waltz
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