 |
| Images courtesy of Troma Entertainment |
In 2014, Vinegar Syndrome paired up with Troma Entertainment
for the home video Blu-ray disc release of Lloyd Kaufman and Theodore Gershuny’s
1973 X rated thriller Sugar Cookies in a new 4K digital restoration made
from the original camera negative. An
underground erotic revenge drama co-written by Kaufman and produced by Ami
Artzi and eventual Oscar winning director Oliver Stone, it was a sexy romp
spoken of the same breath as Nicolas Roeg’s Performance or Hollywood 90028
released the same year (picked up for 4K restoration by Grindhouse Releasing
recently). Now that VS disc which
featured two new video interviews with Lloyd Kaufman, actress Lynn Lowry and
co-star Mary Woronov has since gone out of print and goes for expensive costs
via third party sellers like on eBay.
Fear not, however, as the folks at Troma Entertainment have renewed the
rights to the VS release and more or less are rereleasing their own disc port
of Sugar Cookies slated for release on July 15th.
Alta Leigh (Lynn Lowry) is a sexy young brunette model
working for a pornographer named Max Pavell (George Shannon) when during a
sadomasochistic sex game he manipulates her into filming her own suicide by way
of taking a gun barrel down her throat and pulling the trigger. Very quickly Alta’s agent (and secret lesbian
lover) Camilla (Mary Woronov, also director Gershuny’s wife) begins scouting
for a replacement and lands on exact blonde lookalike Julie (also Lynn Lowry)
whom Camilla immediately begins grooming as Max’s new porn muse including
garnering a wig designed to resemble Alta’s brunette hairstyle. At first it seems like casual nude play with
Julie frolicking around naked for most of it including some flirtations and
fooling around with Camilla. But soon it
becomes apparent Camilla has something more sinister in mind, a plot intended
to avenge herself against her boss and sometimes lover Max for killing her
lover Alta and it doesn’t take long for Julie to begin fearing for her safety.
At once painterly and tawdry with scenes involving molestation
with a gun barrel predating Shatter Dead, tonally nebulous as you’re not
always sure if you are wading through soft pornography or a vacation travelogue
or a murder mystery, Sugar Cookies is the kind of underground X rated
drama that ran counterculturally to the more commercially viable mainstream R
rated film. Still, for Troma, it proved
to be a money loser with Lloyd Kaufman joking it was the first X rated film to
lose money. Originally called Love/Deaths,
the film is all over the map including some bizarre asides that don’t add up
including a subplot with Max’s ex wife and her overweight son which keeps
recurring but doesn’t pay off and fills like filler. Partially a projection of the New York arty
lifestyle laced with the mechanics of pornography, partially a strange sex
laden revenge thriller, there really isn’t a simply way to describe Sugar
Cookies except perhaps as a precursor of sorts to the Italian sex comedy segueing
into the giallo thriller of sorts.
Mary Woronov and Lynn Lowry more or less carry this strange
sex and murder odyssey all by themselves despite having a sizable supporting
cast. Much of the film plays off of the
sexual tension between Camilla and Alta/Julie with a bit of a Vertigo or
proto-Single White Female doppelganger leaning though neither Julie (nor
we for that matter) are aware of Camilla’s ulterior motives and grand master
plan. Lowry initially turned the film
down over its rampant nudity but after hastily agreeing she and the cast and
crew got used to the idea after awhile. Running
a brisk 89 minutes and featuring ornate cinematography by Andrei Tarkovsky’s The
Sacrifice cameraman Hasse Wallin and a phenomenal electronic score by Popcorn
song composer Gershon Kingsley, the look and sound of Sugar Cookies is
painterly and mannered and doesn’t feel like the regional production that it is. The reverberating, sometimes pulsating
understated electronic score kind of predates the synthesized work of Howard Shore
or Giorgio Moroder.
While this didn’t necessarily garner much attention at the
time, in the years since it has become a cult favorite of fans of Mary Woronov
and Lynn Lowry as well as a curious footnote in the careers of Lloyd Kaufman
and Oliver Stone who sadly has since disavowed involvement with it. Though not necessarily a friendly or tame
property, it is an interesting revenge thriller with a kind of psychosexual
edge that puts it a cut above other exploitation films being churned out at the
time. Looking back at it now, it functions
as a snapshot of then-1970s New York and while not as astute as, say, Brian De
Palma’s Hi, Mom! or as filthy scuzzy as Hollywood 90028 it does
usher in a vibe and aura which couldn’t have been captured by major studio
production means. A film Lynn Lowry has
since come out feeling highly proud of, Sugar Cookies is a naughty yet
taut little exploitation revenge drama that’s riffing on Hitchcock and even now
still stands completely apart from the usual Troma Entertainment package.
--Andrew Kotwicki
