Monique Parent in Seaside Seduction (1998)

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Review

Tuna's comments:

Seaside Seduction (1998) is another film written, directed, produced by, and staring Patrick Coppola.

This is a rather ordinary titty/mystery/crime thriller. Take Monique Parent, Belinda Carroll, a beach town, bikers, drugs, crooks, and several different law enforcement jurisdictions, make the two women strippers, throw in double cross after double cross, and stir well. Bake at 350 degrees for 90 minutes or until done, and you have a solid genre film with lots of breasts, lots of plot twists and red herrings, and a surprise ending.

Copolla again proves that he knows how to light breasts so you can see them. The transfer is much better this time. Acting is fine, but the script covers no new ground, and the film looks like many of its ilk. Although IMDB does list it, the information is sketchy at best. This is a solid genre film, and so is a C.

Scoopy's comments:

SPOILERS:

I guess the basic plotline is OK, and the final twist did fool me, so I didn't mind it as an erotic thriller. The lighting is generally OK, so the breasts are clearly visible, the girls are pretty, and Monique Parent even did a brief beaver shot when the club owner ripped off her panties.

And I thought they made a great choice of locales. They found an atmospheric, suitably desolate seaside town in the off-season (Salisbury, Massachusetts played the part of Seaside), and that made the perfect backdrop for the story. They also used a lot of locals, ala Easy Rider. Based on the cast, I think the bikers are real bikers, for example, and the club singers seem to be a local group. That wasn't always a positive element in the film.

In addition to the problems inherent with amateur performers, the local casting seems to have caused a P.R. problem down the road. A local newspaper (http://www.bradyworld.com/bnews/nstory.htm) subsequently reported that locals were not happy when they found themselves in the cast of an R-rated, erotically charged movie. That's not something to tell your girlfriend's mom if you live in a conservative small town.

Aside from that, it's a pretty weak micro-budget movie with many continuity errors and technical problems.

Some examples:

There are one or two people in the cast who are solid professional actors. Monique Parent is at least acceptable, and the old guy who plays the honest local sheriff is not bad, but the rest of the cast sounds like they have never acted in anything. My wife and daughter wandered in a couple times while I was watching it, and they were howling at Belinda Carroll's readings. It is acted far worse than most softcore sex films, and even worse than many hardcore sex films.

The action scenes are howlers. This isn't exactly Fight Club. You can tell that no punches are thrown in the fights. You can't tell what is going on in the shootings, and the stunt double literally jumped on the windshield of a stopped car in the auto accident.

The motivation of the characters is incomprehensible. Belinda can't understand why Patrick Coppola can't take her with him when he leaves town. They met a few hours earlier. Her tantrum, "You are trying to fuck me, but you don't want to live with me!" Huh? She goes on an on about this "living together" thing every time she sees him (even though they haven't even slept together). That made minimal sense as the plot was unfolding, but once you know the surprise ending, looking back on it, you'll really be confused.

The murder victim has to be the world's second stupidest undercover cop. His stripper girlfriend says, "I accidentally walked in on a big drug deal in the club. I'm scared." He offers her comfort by saying, "I'm in town to buy a million dollars worth of heroin." Gosh that was comforting to her.

More important than the lack of comfort, I guess he's known her for a week or something when he's blurting out that he's walking around with a million bucks. Gee, what a surprise that he ended up dead. Actually he should have continued, "But that's ok, cuz I'm really an undercover cop". In fact, he really should have placed this information on posters around town, so the good people of the town wouldn't think he was a real heroin dealer.

Remember I said he was the second stupidest undercover cop? Get this one involving his partner. Coppola walks Carroll around town for many hours, and she bids him good night near his place. He offers to walk her home, but she says, "It's only a half mile, and I like to walk the beach at night". Ok, fair enough, but when he gets back to his room there is a note from her inviting him to breakfast the next morning.

Now he's supposed to be a cop, so do you think maybe he should ask himself, "How is it possible for that note to be there when she's been with me for the past several hours, and she just headed off down the beach in the other direction". He doesn't worry about that. It's clear that he thinks she really wrote the note, but I was just watching, scratching my head over that one. What the #$*@? Can she move faster than The Flash?

(As it turns out, she didn't write it. At least the screenwriter didn't choose to write a detail that was physically impossible, but you think he would have allowed the cop character to deduce that it was physically impossible. Particularly since the screenwriter and the guy playing the cop were the same guy!)

Patrick Coppola and Belinda are in the same building when a shot rings out. They flee. Based on the context of the gunshot, Patrick leaves first. Patrick is on the ground floor, Belinda one floor up, so he has a head start in getting to the street. He runs out of there at top speed, and continues to run through the streets to his hotel room. Guess who is there when he arrives, once again demonstrating Flash-like speed.

On the other hand, you have to love a movie where a male character says to a female (without irony), "C'mon baby, you know you want it."

And not only that - it worked for him!

Nudity Report: see the main commentary. I know from prior correspondence that there are many Monique Parent fans out there. If you are in that group, you should be very pleased with the amount of screen time Monique receives in this film, both clothed and unclothed. I'd say she is probably the best performer in the cast.

Critics Vote: no reviews online

IMDB Summary: not enough votes for a score

DVD Info: Widescreen letterboxed, 1.85:1; no features at all; as for the audio - fuggitaboudit.

Written by Tuna & Scoopy ...courtesy of scoopy.net