A cautionary tale about the tragic consequences of mixing business and pleasure in the field of psychosexual research, BODY CHEMISTRY refashions FATAL ATTRACTION for the white-lab-coat set. Marc Singer (BEASTMASTER) stars as Dr. Tom Redding, an ambitious thirtysomething sex researcher up
for promotion as lab director. His boss instructs him to do everything in his power to please Dr. Claire Archer (Lisa Pescia), a buxom, blonde sex researcher dangling a fat government grant for research into aberrant sexual behavior and violence. Tom gives his all their first night at the lab,
after Claire plays her favorite sicko S & M videotape for him (in the interest of science) and hits him up for some (safe) commitment-free sex. After a night of frenzied field research, Tom wakes up in Claire's apartment and slinks home to his wife and child (Mary Crosby and H. Bradley Barneson).
Claire calls him to say she inadvertently left her panties in the lab last night (right next to the empty bottle of champagne), and Tom rushes to the lab to remove the evidence, only to be informed by his boss that Claire has pulled the plug on the grant. Tom then rushes back to Claire's place,
where she tells him she assumed he might find it difficult to work with her after their impetuosity of the night before. He proves that nothing could be further from the truth, plunging into another kinky romp with his colleague. Claire awards the grant to the lab and Tom is rewarded with his
promotion. Tom's wife decides to celebrate hubby's coup by throwing a party for the whole lab; meanwhile, Claire becomes more and more demanding, even showing up in a van outside Tom's home and demanding sex while his wife and child are unloading groceries in the driveway. Tom decides to break off
the liaison, invoking the no-commitments clause in their sexual contract, but Claire reneges. She demands that he show up for an intimate dinner at her apartment, and when he fails to appear, she responds violently, smashing the romantic table settings and two uneaten crab dinners--which she then
mails to her ex-lover's home. Now Tom begins to realize that Claire is a tad unstable and refuses to see her or take her phone calls. She responds by sending him a videotape of their fandango in the van, filmed without his knowledge. Tom agrees to meet her at a restaurant, where she embarrasses
everyone within shouting distance by declaring that sex with him was the greatest experience of her life. Tom remains aloof, however, so she steps up her retribution campaign, mailing the van video to his nine-year-old son and showing up at the lab's victory party with his best friend (David
Kagen). Mrs. Redding, who has begun to suspect Tom of philandering, overhears a juicy argument between him and Claire and declares dibs on her husband. Claire leaves the party, but returns later with a can of gasoline and torches part of the house. Tom's wife decides enough is enough and leaves
with the kid; Tom, enraged, returns to Claire's apartment and flings her around a little until she grabs a gun from a nightstand and shoots him dead. When the police arrive, she tearfully explains that they had been having a love affair at the office and that when she tried to break it off, he
became violent--forcing her to act in self-defense.
BODY CHEMISTRY is a tawdry, pointless exercise in sleaze redeemed only by above-average work from director Kristine Peterson and her technical crew. The substance of the film is questionable, to say the least, so Peterson opts for style--and lots of it. The result is a trashy, but watchable and
even entertaining, exploitation film graced by flashy edits, an effective score, and surprisingly attractive cinematography. The film's sexual content is its only reason to exist, and Peterson makes it steam: several scenes between the randy researchers, as well as a couple of their lab videos,
push the boundaries of the R rating about as far as they will go. This sort of action could have become boring very quickly, after the initial titillation, but Peterson has a visual flair that maintains excitement. She also manages to establish a certain amount of tension within the confines of
the film's ludicrous plot. (Sexual situations, nudity, violence, profanity.) leave a comment