High Heel Homicide (4 Stars)

I love the DVD cover, pictured above. It looks like the covers of the paperback novels that they sell in the bookstores at Stuttgart train station. The difference is that the books, the few I've read, are disappointing. The book covers have very little to do with the story. That's not the case with this new film from Dean McKendrick. We really do have a woman in high heels murdering men. Delicious!

A woman has been killing men during or immediately after sex, then leaving a letter painted on their chest in lipstick. The only thing that links the murders is that all the men are ex-policemen. The police detectives Sam and Maggie -- we never find out their last names -- investigate the case, always one step behind the killer.

I'm happy to see that police dress code doesn't require female detectives to wear a bra. I wonder if that's a disadvantage when they have to chase a criminal.

This isn't a murder mystery. The viewer sees from the beginning who the killer is. After all, we'd be disappointed if we didn't see the exciting murders being committed. It's an erotic thriller in the style of the classic thrillers of the 1980's and 1990's, but with more sex.

Dean McKendrick spent three years making erotic comedies for Retromedia. Since 2016 he's turned his attention to erotic thrillers. This is the best of his films since last year, because he's finally getting a feel for what's required of an erotic thriller. The plot needs to be more intricate than in his previous films. More than anything else, there needs to be some sort of surprise at the end, a plot twist. That's what makes this better than his previous films. My only criticism, and I know that many of my readers will disagree with me, is that there are too many sex scenes. Six sex scenes is too much for a film that runs less than 80 minutes. Four would be enough, leaving more room for plot development.

I have one last question, something that's been bugging me for years. We all know that neck snapping thing that people do in action movies to kill someone. A quick twist of the neck, and he's immediately dead. This has been done in the movies for the last 30 years. Is it really that easy? Carter Cruise just grabs Andy Long's head, twists his neck, and he's gone. If it's that easy to kill a man no woman needs to buy a gun for self defence.