Has the front page of Netflix got you feeling blah? Looking for a more adventurous cinematic experience?
In RepWatch, film critic and podcaster Will Sloan talks to programmers who bring their personal stamps to Toronto’s thriving repertory cinemas.
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An unintended consequence of the decline of video stores has been that many communities have lost their most vital social spaces for movie buffs.
Luckily, Toronto has Eyesore Cinema, a brick-and-mortar video rental store in Bloordale whose Screening Collective has helped make the shop a busy communal hub.
Held most evenings in the store’s back room, Eyesore’s screenings are ad-hoc, community-run and wildly experimental, featuring some of the most adventurous film programming in the city.
One of the crown jewels of the schedule is Tender Prey, a monthly series “celebrating the best and worst of erotic ‘90s thrillers.”
Of course, this is a genre where the line between “best” and “worst” can be porous, and Tender Prey proudly programs tacky direct-to-video potboilers like the Shannon Tweed vehicle Cold Sweat (1993) and Jim Wynorski’s Body Chemistry 3 (1990) alongside big-budget oddities like Jennifer Lynch’s Boxing Helena (1993).
For a genre that once ruled the shelves of video stores, it’s a fitting homecoming.
This Thursday, March 13, Tender Prey will return with another video-store classic: Whispers in the Dark (1992), whose all-star cast includes Annabella Sciorra, Jill Clayburgh, and John Leguizamo.
We spoke to programmer Alison Lang about falling down the erotic thriller rabbit hole.
I love Eyesore Cinema. I hosted an event there myself a few months ago and really liked the space. What can you say about Eyesore as a venue?
There are not a lot of bells and whistles. I would say it's charmingly DIY. Some people screen stuff off of a PlayStation.
It has this funny, almost clandestine energy because you have to walk into a DVD rental space, which is very chaotic with a lot of things to look at, and then you have to the back where there's this screening room that's separated literally just by a curtain — there's no soundproofing or anything.
It's a tiny room with maybe 30 seats, and I find that people are charmed by this weird secret space. It kind of makes you feel like you're in the know about something.
It's really accessible as a space to rent. Unlike other spaces in Toronto, it's not particularly expensive. If you wanted to show your own movie or have an event there, it's very easy to talk to Daniel [Hanna, the owner] and work out a deal, and you don't have to be a seasoned programmer. I'm certainly not!
I think the only reason Daniel let me have a series there was because I was a long-time volunteer at the store, so after some badgering he was like, ‘Fine, fine.’
How did you become interested in the erotic thriller genre?
I honestly got into them during the pandemic, when I was just looking for soft-brain kind of stuff that could keep my interest.
I started re-watching all of Paul Verhoeven's stuff, like Basic Instinct and Showgirls, and then a bunch of the [erotic thrillers] from the ‘90s and 2000s. Like, oh God, this one that Kevin Spacey is in called Consenting Adults, which I found really gripping.
I was like, 'Wow, I'm like really into these movies right now!' And I started digging a bit more into the genre and realizing what a wide range of movies it encompasses, especially in the late ‘80s and ‘90s.
Because it was such a hot trend, for a while you had this range of very expensive Hollywood movies that were aiming to have some sort of artistic pedigree, like Louis Malle’s Damage — which is trash, but it has a European pedigree. You also have these direct-to-video films directed by, like, [notorious schlock-peddler] Jim Wynorski, and then you have women wading into this pool too, like Katt Shea with Poison Ivy and Stripped to Kill. I just realized there was this wild cornucopia that was ready for discovery.
This was the same time that I listened to the season of “You Must Remember This” that focussed on the erotic ‘80s and ‘90s, and I just loved it.
It seemed like maybe there were other people interested in this genre who might want to hang out with me and just laugh at some of these ridiculous movies together.
What have been some of the best screenings?
The first screening where people really turned out in droves was — and it's funny, because it’s technically not an erotic thriller, it's kind of an erotic action movie — but Skyscraper, with Anna Nicole Smith.
I'm laughing just hearing that. I’m not familiar with that one.
It's very funny. It does have a lot of sex scenes. I kind of threw it on, on a whim, just because I wanted to watch it, and Anna Nicole Smith is just such an interesting figure. It was packed. People showed up and I was like, ‘Wow, I had no idea people were interested in this.’
I don’t know if it’s a turning point, because I could easily show something next week and there will be two people there, but the other big sell-out was Tomcat: Dangerous Desires, which stars Richard Grieco. It’s by a Canadian director…
This one I’ve heard of. Directed by Paul Donovan!
Yeah, same guy who did Siege! It's shot in Vancouver, and I love that a lot of these movies were shot in Toronto and Vancouver to save money as stand-ins for other cities.
Basically, Richard Grieco is an interpretive dancer who is genetically modified to be spliced with cat genes because he has an immune disorder. So, he's trying an experimental treatment but instead of turning him into a physical cat-man, he just becomes very nimble and quite horny.
So he gets into a lot of stupid, meaningless intrigues with various poor women who get involved in his trap.
We try to show things that haven't been widely released. Usually they're trapped on VHS. I think people were intrigued by Tomcat: Dangerous Desires because you really can't find it anywhere. It hasn't been re-released by Vinegar Syndrome. It's been kind-of lost in time, and I think that was part of the appeal too — people hadn't heard of it.
What can you tell me about Whispers in the Dark?
Whispers in the Dark is sort of what I was mentioning before — it's one of the 'Hollywood' erotic thrillers.
I find every Hollywood erotic thriller is aping a more successful one. This one, I think, was trying to follow in the footsteps of Final Analysis — a very boring mainstream erotic thriller with Richard Gere and Kim Basinger where there's a sexy intrigue with a psychiatrist and his patient and professional boundaries are crossed.
Whispers in the Dark is sort of the same, except I like it because there's a gender reversal: the psychiatrist in this instance is played by Annabella Sciorra, and she’s a workaholic who hasn't had a lot of fun in a long time. She meets this guy who sweeps her off her feet, and — this is not a spoiler, it's revealed early on — it turns out he's one of her patients' husbands, and this patient has been relaying stories about her husband's sadomasochistic fantasies being acted on.
There’s a murder, and there's a coterie of terrible men, including this new boyfriend, and all of them are suspects, including her other male patients.
It has a good attitude. It's very unapologetically trashy. There are twists and turns.
There’s a very dramatic orchestral score and all these pedigreed actors. The other thing that’s notable is that Alan Alda is in it. It's the first and only erotic thriller I'm aware of where Alan Alda plays a role, and in fact I think he was nominated for a Razzie.
So, y’know, if that doesn’t sell it, I don’t know what will!
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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Whispers in the Dark plays at Eyesore Cinema on Thursday, March 13 at 8:00pm.
Will Sloan is a Toronto-based writer and man-about-town. His two — count ‘em — two podcasts are The Important Cinema Club and Michael & Us.
