With a notable absence of sex in mainstream Hollywood cinema today, there's
a growing nostalgia for the erotic thrillers of the past, and even the
Criterion Channel is currently hosting a season based around the
genre.
While Criterion's season focusses on mainstream titles like
Body Double and Body Heat, director Anthony Penta's documentary We Kill for Love is
concerned with the sort of movies we more readily associate with the
phrase "Erotic Thriller," the wave of straight to video movies that
emerged in the 1990s.
Contributors include Andrew Stevens, Jim Wynorski, Fred Olen Ray, Monique Parent, Amy Lindsay,
Kira Reed Lorsch, Linda Ruth Williams, Abbey Bender
and more.
"We Kill for Love is part film essay, part documentary, and
part casefile," says Penta. "It's a record of my prolonged investigation into a forgotten but once
lucrative film movement -- the direct-to-video erotic thriller -- as well
as a fantasia on its themes. For six years I tracked down the prime
suspects of these films and I recorded their stories. I travelled the
country to interview the academics and film writers whose books and
articles explored its mysteries. I'm very happy to be partnering with
Yellow Veil Pictures on the release of this film, and I'm sure it will
serve as a permanent monument to not only a lost film subgenre, but a
bygone era of American cinema."
We Kill for Love premieres at New Orleans' Overlook Film
Festival on April 1st.
Check out a clip and poster below.
The official synopsis reads:
Written, produced, and directed by Anthony Penta, the doc goes in search of the lost and misunderstood world of the direct-to-video erotic thriller, an American film genre that once dominated late night cable television and the shelves of neighborhood video stores.
