Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me (1992) By the time this rambunctious little comedy appeared, the era of independent film was truly taking flight.
Indie filmmakers, with little or no money but endless creativity and daring, were slapping together their outlier movies in three weeks or less.
And their cinematic influences? Possibly anybody and any film, from classics to whatever film they saw the night before they began work on their scripts.
Important to keep in mind.....'Pulp Fiction' was still two years away, so the indie world, thankfully, was yet to be swamped with that toxic flood of Tarantino-esque imitations that now reside in well deserved obscurity.
So who, if anyone, were aspiring (and perspiring) indie film creators taking their inspiration from?
It's all too clear whom writer-director Joel Hershman hoped to emulate and pay homage to with his debut effort, 'Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me'.......
In the tradition of John Waters and Paul Bartel, Hershman fashioned a similar oddball, screwball comedy. Like Waters' legendary 'Pink Flamingos', the film's populated with oddball, trailer trash loons, barely existing above poverty level. They spend most of their time screaming insults at each other, and a few are prone to violence.
Things get off to roaring start with the handgun wedding of high strung Twinkle (Sean Young), holding a pistol on her groom Eli (Max Parrish) a hapless hunk who helped her swipe a load of cash from her criminal father. Before they can say their "I do's", they're on the ground wrestling for the gun, which ends up pointing at Twinkle when it goes off.
Max flees with the loot, biding his time in a rental trailer park while awaiting a passport and new fake identity paperwork from the shady 'Mr. Jones' (played, we kid you not, by LSD guru Dr. Timothy Leary).
At the park, filled with the usual John Waters gargoyle caricatures, Eli avoids Sabra a braying, brassy stripper played by porn star April Rayne. But he falls for Dannie, Sabra's sweet virginal 17 year old little sister. And Dannie, played by rising indie star Adrian Shelley, is reason we stayed with the film from beginning to end.
Shelley had already carved out a name for herself with her first two films, "The Unbelievable Truth" and "Trust" and along with Parker Posey, she became one the most unforgettable manic pixie dreamgirls in independent films. And tragically, her life and brilliant career as a writer-director ("Waitress") was extinguished by her senseless murder at the hands of an illegal immigrant.
Her presence automatically elevates the film and toward its finale it rewards her by giving her one of the funniest deadpan lines in the entire running time.
As for the movie.......well, either you surrender to the sheer nuttiness of it or watch it like a10 car pile-up on the highway. Either way, it's never boring. Diane Ladd's in there as one of the trailer park inmates and the rest of the cast (including the notoriously wacky Sean Young) give it everything they've got.
Even though it spends a little too much time wearing its insanity on its sleeve like a badge of honor, we ended up liking it. And the eventual love scene between Eli and Dannie is done with gentle, erotic tenderness, surprising to encounter in such an outrageous farce.
And don't forget to listen to the lyrics of all hilarious accompanying songs on the soundtrack. They're as funny as anything going on in the movie..... For them and Adrian Shelley, 3 stars (***).
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