The Hot Promises of the NC-17 Rating Turn Cold — Again

The cover art for the Vinegar
 Syndrome release.

When the NC-17 rating was introduced in 1990 it was supposed to carry the weight of an X without any of the stigma associated with it. It was the rating that let moviegoers know that while a film was for adults only, it was not porn.

That’s all well and good, but that didn’t stop most of us from thinking that any movie slapped with an NC-17 must be chock full of explicit sex. Or was that just me?

I know it’s what I thought when I spotted the 1990 film IN THE COLD OF THE NIGHT on a Blockbuster shelf in the early ’90s. At the time, I was not aware that Blockbuster did not carry NC-17 films or that In the Cold of the Night had been cut to receive an R. All I knew was this movie was a trashy erotic thriller and, according to the VHS box on the Blockbuster shelf, it was rated NC-17, meaning it would be extra trashy. I eagerly grabbed that fucker and rented it.

The tacky VHS box that I
saw on the Blockbuster shelf in
the early 1990s.

Needless to say, my expectations were quickly dashed. It had plenty of titties and f-bombs, but nothing that made it dirtier than your standard R-rated movie. Of course, it was an R-rated movie, but would an uncut version really be much different? Very few NC-17 movies ever seem to live up to such a severe rating, the line between an R and NC-17 often so thin as to be undetectable. Usually it means a penis or two appears on screen, but, frustratingly, not always. A story with a lot of sex seems more likely to get an NC-17, but said sex wasn’t necessarily hardcore. It could, as Kirby Dick pointed out in his documentary This Film is Not Yet Rated, just come down to the actors thrusting one too many times. At least XXX porn is unambiguous. NC-17 is a sham.

And yet I fall for it every goddamned time. It’s why, when I discovered that Vinegar Syndrome released the original NC-17 cut of In the Cold of the Night on Bluray and DVD combo, I had to purchase a copy of this movie. Maybe this director’s cut would be the “good” version of the movie Blockbuster denied me back in 1990s. (Spoiler alert: this is a Nico Mastorakis film. There is no good version.)

In the Cold of the Night’s protagonist, Scott (blond n’ bland Jeff Lester), is a successful Los Angeles photographer, specializing in photos of scantily clad babes, some of whom will happily spend the night with him. After all, who can resist rolling around on that lighted-up waterbed of his? But Scott’s post-coital slumber is disrupted by a nightmare in which he creeps through a spacious single-story mansion, discovers a beautiful woman showering and then proceeds to strangle her. When Scott wakes up he’s in the middle of choking his real-life bed mate, Lena (Shannon Tweed). Lena is a surprisingly good sport about Scott’s sleep strangling, but then this shouldn’t be too surprising as her character is written essentially to be an inflatable sex doll come-to-life (“I’m a one-night kind of girl. Guys usually invite me to dinner before, not after,” she quips). His best friend (Brian Thompson) makes jokes about the dreams and a psychiatrist (David Soul) assures Scott his mental health is sound, but neither allay Scott's worries about the recurring nightmares.

A glowing waterbed may not promote a restful night’s sleep,
but fuck it, it looks cool.

Then come the hallucinations, Scott going into a trance during a photo shoot as he sees himself prowling the mystery woman’s home. Later, while at Venice Beach, he sees what appears to be a Ramones wannabe wearing a t-shirt with an airbrush portrait of the woman of his homicidal dreams. He chases Ramones Wannabe to get his shirt and find out where he got it (Ramones Wannabe ran because he stole the shirt, it not occurring to him he could’ve just lied and said a friend gave it to him). This sends Scott to one of those tacky beachside t-shirt shops, where he tries to get info about the woman’s identity from the proprietor (John Beck), but, as we all know, the relationship between a mediocre airbrush artist and his clientele is strictly confidential and cannot be breached. Scott leaves him his card, nonetheless.

The next day who should show up at his door but the woman of his nightmares, Kimberly (Adrianne Sachs), making this visit specifically to tell Scott to fuck off. Undaunted, Jeff turns up the charm and before you know it, Kimberly is parking her motorcycle (yes, she rides a motorcycle) in his studio and letting him drive her to a lunch date with her mother. Scott drives a restored classic Chevy, by the way, this being a movie where the lead characters are given unique vehicles in lieu of interesting personalities.

Adrianne Sachs’ nuanced portrayal of a stoned woman experiencing
a stroke while checking out a man’s package.

It’s not long after that that Kimberly’s stunt double is giving Scott’s stunt double a motorcycle ride through her house (yes, through her house). The boxy mansion she calls home is, unsurprisingly, the same mansion Scott has visited in his dreams. Though the motorcycle ride ends at the bedroom, the couple decides to keep their hands to themselves—until Scott barges in on Kimberly taking a shower (“What took you so long?” she asks). At this point the movie idles in Skinemax territory. Sachs’ breasts, which are just a little too firm and perfectly shaped to be true, get a lot of screen time, though I imagine the MPAA watchdogs were more troubled by the millisecond appearance of Lester’s flaccid penis, which most definitely was not in the R-rated cut. The two actors may have thrust and gyrated more times than the MPAA is comfortable with as well. Personally, I’d demand cutting a sequence in which Lester pours a bowl of marbles onto Sachs’ body and rubs them over her breasts, not to ensure an R rating but because it’s stupid. But was any of this hot enough to justify the NC-17 rating? No, not even for 1990.

Kimberly’s involvement with Scott is not coincidental, of course, and neither are Scott’s dreams. More surprising are the revelations of a mind control experiment and Marc Singer’s participation in this movie.

In the Cold of the Night could be described as Body Double crossed with Videodrome and not as good as either. Among its many problems is its being nearly two hours long, which is at least twenty minutes longer than the movie needs to be, and you’ll feel every excess minute. There’s a lot of extra fat in the movie’s first half, with scenes that exist for contrived reasons, like Scott fleeing his home to sleep among the homeless on the beach, just to set up his spotting the Ramones Wannabe the next morning. (He also treats the homeless guy on the neighboring bench to an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet, something I think was meant as comic relief, but the scene’s neither funny nor necessary.) Other scenes—interrogating John Beck’s t-shirt shop owner; that lunch with Kimberly’s mom, played by Tippi Hedren(!)—seem to exist solely to give some name actors screen time, actors who deserve a much better movie.

The lopsided casting is another one of the movie’s flaws, but it’s also what makes it such a curiosity. In the Cold of the Night is brimming with overqualified actors in small roles. Brian Thompson is married to Mastorakis’s daughter, so maybe he was just helping out his father-in-law, but how to explain David Soul, John Beck and Tippi fucking Hedren being in this thing? Even Beastmaster star Marc Singer and direct-to-video erotic thriller queen Shannon Tweed seem out of this movie’s league, especially when they’re acting opposite such uninspiring leads. Jeff Lester (a.k.a. Mr. Susan Anton) later went on to guest on Baywatch, and “Baywatch guest star” perfectly describes his talent level as an actor (he’s doing quite well as a director today, so good on him). Adrianne Sachs never landed a guest spot on Baywatch, though her talent for modeling swimwear was perfect for that show. She’s a less than ideal choice to play the femme fatale in an erotic thriller, although I guess her willingness to get naked early and often should count for something (Sachs later went on to appear in Alien Intruder, in a significantly smaller role 😕). Ultimately, I wish Mastorakis had spent less money on notable supporting players and splurged on more capable leads.

It’s clear Mastorakis was aiming for something a little more highbrow with In the Cold of the Night, but no amount of Miami Vice-inspired art direction (i.e., lots of neon decor) or notable B- and C-list names in the cast can completely cover up the director’s low-brow sensibilities. Just enough of Mastorakis’ signature tackiness bleeds through to make you wish he just gave up this attempt at being a half-priced DePalma and made the type of crass exploitation movie audiences expect from the director of Island of Death. In short, if he was going to make an NC-17 movie, he should’ve fucking made it count.