It tries very hard to pretend it’s more than just a soft-core porn
by Martin Hafer
Who is the audience for this movie?! After all, My Trip Back to the Dark Side is filled with gratuitous nudity from start to finish…yet it’s hardly sexy. On the other hand, it wants to be a serious suspense film….but it has gratuitous nudity from start to finish! And, to make it even worse, just about everyone in the film is a low-life. My advice is that if you wanna watch porn, watch something that is sexy…not this film. And, you really cannot take this poorly written and unintentionally silly film very seriously, so it’s not at all suspenseful.
Shortly after the film begins, you see Sean Young working on a movie. She’s playing herself and you rightfully assume it’s a Sean Young film. Well, that’s not the case and Miss Young only appears here briefly and at the end. However, during these small scenes, she easily has the best moments in the film. She’s crude but quite funny when she plays herself.
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As for the rest of the film, the plot often makes little sense and, if you think about it, the leading man and his part in the film is really unnecessary to the plot!! I have never seen this in a movie before and I doubt if I’ll see it again, but Shawn (Jason Pace) really does nothing during the film but whine about a movie he wants to create as the plot unfolds all around him—and doesn’t really involve him at all! It’s weird and rather sloppy. And, it’s not interesting.
Much of the film is like porn. Huge portions are filmed in a strip club where there is lots of nudity and there are a few sex scenes where none of it seemed very interesting or even necessary. This is especially the case because it’s supposed to be a film about a mob killing—and it takes a very, very long time for that to occur. Frankly, the film seemed sloppy and poor throughout and I cannot see the typical porn lover to be the least bit satisfied. And, as far as suspense goes, the film is less suspenseful than deciding whether or not to have toast or a bagel for breakfast. My feeling is that the film only worked in the Sean Young scenes because these parts didn’t take themselves very seriously…other than that, I cannot see anything to recommend this film. I know it sounds like I am being rough on this one, but I lost 92-minutes of my life with My Trip Back to the Dark Side!