Secret Games (1992 Video) User Reviews

On the whole, a let down.

[magnuspy · 5/10 · 10 December 2000]

This is a movie with a stereotyped plot, yet one which began with a lot of promise that was ultimately squandered. The main character is a beautiful, bored housewife whose husband neglects her. One of her friends (another bored housewife) recommends that she gets a day job as a high-class prostitute. She tries it and likes it, but then she meets up with a "dangerman" client. The movie then turns into the typical "woman in threatened by dangerous handsome man" schlock.

The sad part is that the movie could have been a classic of the genre with a little more care. The production values were high, the actors beautiful, the acting acceptable for the most part. However, in this kind of movie, all that stuff just falls flat unless it is backed up by good sexual situations. Unfortunately, those in this movie are laughably unrealistic. They did not generate any heat at all. If you are renting, make sure to get the unrated version. The Blockbuster version is pretty pathetic.

The movie spawned 2 sequels. Number 2 was pretty bad. The third one was on par with the first.

Magnus.

DELICIOUS CHOCOLATE GEM WITH HARD CANDY SHELL.

[Bronco22 · 5/10 · 16 November 1998]

Flowing like a river, this movie gushes over the viewer and causes waves of delight and triumph. As I watched this pounding river flow over me, I felt like a deer panting for the water through a wide open field of daisies and bunny rabits, finding its treasure only to be satisfied by the powerful intoxicating thirst quencher. Pounds of beauty overpower the viewer to the point of surrender, giving the viewer no outlet or way of escape. One is only enthrolled by the majestic mystical beings that dominate the screen. When its over, one can only thirst for more and then drowned in a pool of ecstasy from the sequel.

A very good film; even worth owning

[darkwing_duck · 5 June 1999]

It is not a boring erotic film. The film actually is very exciting near the end, and I don't mean sexually, although the erotic scenes are very sensual. The plot is simple and overused, but it is an enjoyable film.

Michelle is very beautiful as the unhappy, sexually frustrated wife. The erotic scenes between her and Martin Hewitt were very well done, and quite arousing. She is a very beautiful woman and seeing her in bed is worth renting the movie. I am sorry that she did not star in any of the sequels, which I intend to watch.

THIS MOVIE IS A JOKE

[matija-trost · 2/10 · 19 January 2003]

A bad one.

Oh, my...this is one of the movies, which doesn't have even one positive effect. Just everything from actors to story stinks to the sky. I just wonder how low I.Q. you should have to watch this kind of flick and even enjoy.

Is there something than this is worth watching for? Well, there is a lot of nudity involved, but it's nothing particular. And when you just think that it couldn't get worse, your realize that all the naked ladies looked like there are forty years old. C'mon guys, where did you search for these actresses. In elderly home, perhaps.

Anyway, the leading actresses has some sex-appeal and knows how to show it. Again, too bad, that she is too skinny & old. All in all, skip these one.

2 out of 10

A heart pounding erotic adventure.

[mando_leon · 8/10 · 5 April 2001]

Heart pounding erotic drama are the words that come to mind when I think of "Secret Games". It becomes more erotic as the film goes along and at one point blew me away! I didn't expect the delightful scene I was about to encounter. The "call girl" has her first customer and what a customer! One of the most erotic lesbian scenes I have ever seen. The husband should have listened to his wife and perhaps she wouldn't have gone on this erotic journey. It turned out to cost them in the end but, it was one exciting ride! GO SEE THIS MOVIE!!!

SIMPLY BREATHTAKING...AN INSTANT CLASSIC.

[Mando69 · 7/10 · 2 August 2000]

This film had my heart pounding. The acting was great, the erotic music and the beautiful women add up to make this one a winner. The lead actress decides to join an escort service when she realizes that her husband has no time for her. She step's into a whole new world her first client being another woman. This is a film you definitely DON'T want to pass up.

As great as erotic thrillers are

[BandSAboutMovies · 6/10 · 22 January 2022]

The Dark Brothers were proud to say that porn was dead and they were here to change it.

They were purveyors of fine filth, as they also claimed.

And they made - well, Gregory Dark - made movies that are fascinatingly unerotic, movies that the mainstream adult industry didn't understand, that predate the gonzo and internet era, that had the kind of fashion and art direction that wasn't dated or a soap opera or a parody of a known movie.

And as for Gregory Dark, his life was one of constant reinvention, from earning his MFA from Stanford University, then doing graduate studies in film at New York University, then making a documentary on the adult industry that led to him immersing himself in it, while finding that he could reinvent himself into a whole new person, half of the Dark Brothers, a somehow even darker form of the already shady world of pornography.

Then he realized that there was a market for erotic thrillers that could be sold to video and cable, made for a more female audience, one that nearly always features strong women and feels like giallo, but instead of murder being the driving force, it's always lovemaking, but incredibly unrealistic, fog-ridden, neon-drenched, sax-blaring sex that challenges the Jacuzzi in Showgirls for gymnastic horizontal dancing. Everyone has a perfect body and a perfect life, but everyone is miserable. Indeed, Dark told The Rialto Report that no one had a happy ending in these movies.

Dark was also counseled by a father figure who was a psyops psychological warfare expert and had a teacher who gave him a voice in his head so critical that he fought himself with every project. So when his adult films were so different that they changed the industry like soap bubbles inside a syringe full of heroin - seriously, listen to that interview The Rialto Report did - slowly but surely making the look, the feel and the madness of his scenes commonplace.

So where would Gregory Dark take mainstream?

Ironically, his films seem to feel like Michael Ninn, who would seem to be the exact opposite of his adult films. He mentioned that he'd consider how Ninn would compose shots and shoot the female form and that comes through in his softcore work.

The story is one as old as Lady Chatterley's Lover or Emmanuelle. A housewife is bored and strays, but then learns that once she's become an escort, her fantasy life doesn't live up to what she'd hoped it would be. That's simple. What isn't is the style Dark shows in each scene and yeah, there's little to no plot, but everyone looks fabulous, like the kind of drawings of humans we'd send to space so aliens would know just how proud we are of our bodies. Between Dalia Sheppard, Michele Brin, Vidal's daughter Catya Sassoon, Monique Parent, Kelly Royce and Alison Armitage, this movie feels like a Patrick Nagel portrait come to life.

If Andy Sidaris presented us with the light side of free-spirited and innocent sex appeal, of course Gregory Dark must be his reverse. As women sit on lounges combing their hair and relaxing before another love scene, everyone looks absolutely stunning, so ideal that they even wear their high heels to bed but never sleep.

Bonus points for the non-stop voyeur aspect, including a nun that is watching the watching in a continuing motif, and for using Billy Drago as a non-villain character.