It's so bad...it's awful - Color Of Night

 It's so bad...it's awful - Color Of Night

PLOT - A color-blind psychiatrist Bill Capa is stalked by an unknown killer after taking over his murdered friend's therapy group, all of whom have a connection to a mysterious young woman that Capa begins having intense sexual encounters with. 

LOWDOWN - Okay, the year was 2008, and Stacy had herself a bit of an obsession with actor Kevin J O'Connor. I would like to believe this happened after watching Lord Of Illusions for the first time that year and being totally blown away by his character of Philip Swann, the mysterious illusionist who had the high pitch squeaky voice, the long hair, and those beautiful blue colored eyes. "Sigh..."  Of course as always I had to rush out and buy every movie this man had been in. Seeing that he's been a character actor for 25 + years I had a lot to choose from. (Peggy Sue Got Married, Candy Mountain, The Mummy, Deep Rising, ect.) The one movie that did sorta take me by complete surprise was a little gem made back in 1994 that I had to special order from a local book store.

This movie being Color Of Night.

Now when I picked this DVD up a few years ago, I was going into it completely blind. Once I looked at the cover of a very sweaty looking Bruce Willis and some girl, I right away thought to myself "This is a porno?" Going home, I popped it in, and honestly couldn't believe what I was witnessing. 

Color Of Night came out at a time when erotic thrillers were huge. The biggest coming out of the early to mid 90's being Basic Instinct. Trying to make a sleek murder mystery set in LA with beyond over the top sex scenes sounds like the best idea ever right?

Wrong.

I'm a huge fan of Mr. Bruce Willis. I mean whoever doesn't know my love for the Die Hard movies of The Fifth Element needs to sit down and have a long talk with me. Bruce has been just a staple in watching movies while I was growing up. Hell, I even remember when I went to go see The Sixth Sense in theaters (spoiler alert...ah hell, it's too easy never mind.)

So I was a little stunned to have seen him decide taking this role was a good idea. Maybe he needed the cash? Who knows. Being made just a year before the ever so awesome Die Hard With A Vengeance, Bruce starred in this movie showing all his glory and letting the audience see the goods. Trust me I did a double take at the over the top pool sex scene. Very impressive Mr. Willis...very impressive. 

I feel this movie sounded much better on paper. It's a clever murder mystery with plenty of twists and turns. In fact I feel the movie had a lot of promise, sadly it fell flat when turned into an actual film. I did like the sorta cheesy over the top plot line with Willis' character unable to see the color red, even though I think that's sorta impossible. This is something I felt maybe could have been used a little bit more. I did like when he goes into the loft and thinks he's stepping in a huge puddle of gray paint, only to see that it's acutely blood. I also liked the killer taunting him on the highway and calling him on his very 90's car phone saying "I'm in the red car!" and of course Bruce can't tell which one it is. Clever...very clever.

Still, a little cheesy and forced.

The opening set the perfect bar for the movie. Over the top as always and seriously didn't stop until the very end. What sorta stunned me was the very impressive cast they had behind them. 

Lesley Ann Warren, Scott Bakula, Brad Dourif, Lance Hennriksen, and of course Kevin J O'Connor. 

My favorite scenes were of course the group therapy scenes in which all these really decent actors seriously acted as if they knew what a mess this movie was and sorta just took it as a joke. I mean they honestly seemed as though they were seeing who could overact the best. The amount of yelling and cringe worthy dialog was insane. Also how about how everything was very over sexuallized. I mean if done the right way it can come off very well. For this it just seemed trashy and over the top. I think a great deal of this movie had scenes for shock value which sadly fell flat.

Can we talk about the awesome snake in the mail box scene?

Also am I the ONLY one who saw the big reveal/twist right at the beginning of the movie? I showed a friend this movie shortly after watching it and he was blown away by it. He said he never saw the twist coming. Um, maybe it's because I've studied makeup that I can tell a person's face no matter how badly they try and cover it up. Had maybe that been done a little bit better who knows...

So aside from all the over acting and very over the top sex scenes, Color Of Night is a pretty legit mystery that could have been done better to do the story to justice. Still, I found the last half an hour or so very interesting and loved the big reveal of who the killer was and why. I  would have loved to have seen the final showdown drawn out a little more (Trust me, fans of My Boyfriend's Back will never look at the movie the same way again!)  decent thriller, with some great actors who honestly looked as if they had no idea what they were doing. Over the top is the best way to sum up Color Of Night, and I'm proud to say this awful movie is one of my favorite guilty pleasures.

3 Stars!