Dance With Death

"Sure," I thought, "I can sit through one more adaptation of Strindberg's greatest play. Haven't thought about it in years."

Sure, Martin Mull seemed to be a little miscast as the bitter, fierce, overbearing captain, but I figured there was no sense in trying to copy Olivier's brilliant interpretation in the 1969 film, so the director must be trying to put a completely different and more contemporary spin on the classical portrayal of a dead, loveless marriage.

And then I realized I was thinking of "Dance OF Death," as opposed to this film, "Dance WITH Death." This movie, as it turns out, is yet another one of those films in which a serial killer is gradually eliminating our precious national stripper reserve until a brave female cop or reporter - a reporter in this case - goes undercover to rip the lid off the scandal and her own wardrobe.

So what makes this film any different from the scores of others with the same plot not written by Strindberg?

Well, it has Martin Mull in it.
And it offers a chance to see a young, chubby Lisa Kudrow as she looked a few years before "Friends." (Right)

Apart from that, it is one of those plots where the scriptwriter tries to make it look like every single character, male and female, could be the killer. In fact, it goes so far as to mis-identify not one but two guys, and makes those characters go down in a flurry of police bullets before the real baddie is unmasked!

Oh, well. I guess you wouldn't be watching a serial stripper murder movie for the plot, would you?

The nudity description is found below.

DVD INFO

Bare bones. No widescreen, no features.

NUDITY REPORT

There is no lower body nudity in this movie, although all the strippers are seen in thongs. The following woman showed their breasts:

Barbara Alyn Woods
Catya Sassoon
Alretha Baker
Tracey Burch
Jill Pierce
one unknown

The Critics Vote ...

No reviews online

The People Vote ...

IMDB summary. IMDb voters score it 4.7/10

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-.

Based on this description, it's a D. It fails as an erotic movie because it delivers only breasts, almost all artificial ones, and the photography and/or DVD transfer are poor to mediocre. It fails as a thriller/slasher movie because - well, because the plot and acting suck. What can ya say? It would be watchable if you are a fan of Barbara Alyn Woods, who is quite charming and sexy in the lead, and does several stripteases.