Pleasure or Pain

On my quest for movies made in the 90's, I stumbled on this one, although, made in the early 2010’s. I decided to watch it because I had seen someone recommend it on TikTok one time. I think the person was a freak for erotic films as I was completely disgusted watching this.

Synopsis

The film opens on a lady, Victoria, probably on a radio show opening up to the world about her experience with a man called Jack whom she met while fitting her new jewelry. According to her, there was this charm about him plus his eyes were screaming, “I'm not going to disappoint you”. She fell for his charm and followed him home.

His house is luxurious but with sparse furniture which she admired. On that first night, they get in an intense entanglement that goes on for the rest of the film.

My review and rating

For this to be everything I can get as a summary for this film, I think it's okay to conclude that it's a crappy film. It felt like I was reading the book “Waiting for Godot.” Very undramatic. If they wanted to put porn out there, they should have just said so and maybe put it as part of the film's genre as heads-up.

When I saw Victoria at the beginning of the film as she began telling her story, I was expecting something thrilling, exciting and worth my time but then it's sub-par.

First thing on my list of things that pissed me off about this film was the authoritative and manipulative attitude of Jack. One the first night he was already being so authoritative and Victoria fell for all of it thinking it was love. I'm glad at some point in the film, although pretty late, she realized it was toxic.

Second is how she abandoned herself just to please a man that went about sleeping with other women and even involved her in threesomes just to satisfy his sexual urges. I know some people have wild sexual lifestyles but then we can all agree that no sane man will involve a woman he claims to adore in a threesome except his superego is no longer at work and all he's got is just the ID. And when it gets to this stage the only thing that comes in handy is visiting an asylum.

Another annoying thing is the method at which Jack made Victoria accept his marriage proposal. He was very unromantic and at that point I wished the song that's trending now on TikTok “Love ain't worth your life I tell you that…,” existed that year so that'd be the soundtrack for that scene. I was scared for her honestly and wished something better would come out of the marriage with Jack other than crazy sexual fantasies. Annoyingly, he even at some point wasn't turned on by her anymore. And that's because she had it with someone else. The irony. She lost her place as his sex toy and he went about with his go-to girl whom she had met even before he forced his ring on her.

When a film is based mainly on eroticism, it becomes boring and completely disgusting. I didn't enjoy any soundtrack as my furrowed brows had probably blocked my ears from getting any sound. The visual wasn't pleasing. Everything was cringe.

After watching this film, I thought it was me who was being salty about it and went to do a little research but I figured that it had no good rating or proper plot. Now I feel like punching that person that recommended it on TikTok. It is so basic and distasteful.

Written and directed by Zalman King, I rate this a 1.5/5.