A dark and stormy night. A group of people together in an isolated location. A past ready to impinge on the present. We are in classic slasher movie territory with Stormswept, which makes it a bit strange, and surprising, when it turns into more of an erotic thriller. That surprise lessens when you realise that this is from David and Svetlana Marsh, the pair behind many other, more straightforward, sex films of the 1980s (and it is also telling that this feels like a 1980s movie, despite being released in the mid-1990s).
Apparently, according to the plot synopsis of this film that can be found on IMDb, and elsewhere, this is all about six people “haunted by the spirit of a demented slave master with an insatiable erotic appetite”. You can accept as much, or little, of that as you wish. It doesn’t really change the movie, which simply throws together people who want to have lots of sexy time, adds some sub/dom scenes here and there, and at least tries to keep things nicely atmospheric for most of the runtime.
I am STILL unsure what my final thoughts are on Stormswept. In some ways it was an odd mess, but part of that stems from me not knowing what to expect from it. As a tame horror film with an emphasis on erotic moments, it actually works (and the genre blend is certainly better here than it is with more pornographic horror works . . . just never let curiosity get the better of you when it comes to The XXXorcist). It doesn’t really matter that the characters are pretty interchangeable, or that the script is weak. It doesn’t even matter that the slim plot feels as if everything has been made up on the spot. The fact that the final scene ends with some kind of sitcom-style punctuating dialogue? It doesn’t matter.
Justin Carroll is the male lead, but he’s obviously second fiddle to all of the main females. Melissa Moore and Julie Hughes do well enough in their roles, Lorissa McComas was very pleasing on the eye, and Kathleen Kinmont tries hard, having to play someone who spends the entire movie hiding away in the basement. There are others onscreen, with Hunt Scarritt being arguably the only other male to make any impact on the plot, but Moore, Hughes, and McComas are the ones who are given the most to do.
David Marsh directs competently enough, he does better there than he does in his co-writing role, and he knows how to keep the camera flattering the women as they start to lose items of clothing. That may be all you want from this kind of film, but it’s admirable that it at least tries to do a bit more. I don’t think it is being too hyperbolic to mention that the film feels as indebted to something like The Haunting as it feels indebted to so many other films from the decade preceding it.
I must, however, finish with a word of warning to all, taken from the IMDb trivia section for this movie - “absolute no owls appear, are heard or are referenced in the film, despite the poster”. I am sorry to be the bearer of such bad news, especially those of you who read this review and thought you were due to get the sexiest owl-filled horror movie of your life.
6/10
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