This inconsequential erotic thriller, originally straight to cable and later released to home video in a somewhat steamier cut, is of interest only as Shannen Doherty's first major career move after her much-publicized dismissal from the long-running TV series "Beverly Hills 90210."
Doherty plays Madeleine Dalton, a frustrated wife who has taken to playing sex games with her husband, Mike (Michael Woods), with the encouragement of her shrink, Dr. Jennings (Judd Nelson). Her sister Chris (Kristian Alfonzo), a cop, is sleuthing a serial killer who likes to blindfold and
handcuff his victims before carving them up. Chris discovers that Dr. Jennings's patient, Robert Aldrich, was the prime suspect in a similar case in San Francisco. Aldrich jumped off a bridge, but no body was ever found.
During a flirtatious therapy session on Jennings's yacht, Maddy describes her erotic games and gives the doctor pictures of herself in the act, which he refuses to examine. Later, Chris tells Maddy that Jennings is a suspect in the slayings, and has been accused of malpractice and sexual
harassment. Maddy pays no heed. In therapy, she tells Jennings about her latest game--blindfolding and handcuffing herself while Mike, playing the "Blindfold Killer," teases her with an ice cube. Jennings warns her that she's in dangerous territory, but she claims that she's finally having
fulfilling sex, whereupon he throws her on his desk and ravishes her.
When Chris recognizes the killer's latest victim as one of Jennings's patients (Shell Danielson), she searches his office and discovers a pair of handcuffs and clippings about the Aldrich case. Finding his office in disarray, Jennings glimpses Maddy's photos, which reveal that "Mike" is actually
Aldrich. Meanwhile, a cuffed and blindfolded Maddy is being abused by a knife-wielding Mike/Aldrich. Chris bursts in and is perturbed to find the wrong man preparing to slay her sister, but a call from Jennings, overhead on the answering machine, clears things up. During a struggle with Aldrich,
Chris is knocked out. Maddy, still trussed and blindfolded, flees through the house. Jennings arrives just in time to jump through a glass door and shoot Aldrich dead.
BLINDFOLD's ludicrous plotting and leaden direction aren't helped by Nelson, miscast as usual, or the frequently undraped Doherty, an actress of limited range who fails to generate much steam (a body double is frequently in evidence). As a career move, this probably helped Doherty even less than
reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at the 1992 Republican Convention. In the attempt to transform Doherty's screen image from "bitch" to "bad girl with a heart of gold," BLINDFOLD reveals her shortcomings along with her breasts. (Nudity, violence, profanity, adult situations.) leave a comment
