"Actor: Karen Salkin"

• Sexual Malice | DVD | (19/09/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Sex so hot, it's deadly", announces the tagline for Sexual Malice. Originally screened in 1994, this is a quintessential late-night TV movie. The well-worn plot concerns relationships inside and outside of marriage, with a twist obvious enough for the non-rocket scientists among us to have twigged well before the denouement. As for the sex scenes--there's little here that errs on the outré side of Dirty Dancing (interestingly enough, there's a secondary role for one Don Swayze), and the visuals are stylishly, almost tastefully done--Ashley Irwin's coffee-table funk adding the right musical enhancement. As the upwardly mobile accountant Christine Chandler, Diane Barton gives a creditable portrayal of a woman caught between the routine of marriage to the predictable Richard (stolidly dependable Edward Albert) and the excitement of an illicit affair with the passably seductive Quinn, played with a certain edge by Doug Jeffrey. The two subplots are wafer thin in narrative terms, but those who enjoy bump-and-grind under piers and in changing rooms will certainly stay the course. On the DVD: Sexual Malice comes to DVD in a 4:3 full frame print that's nonetheless a classy looking effort, and the stereo soundtrack is similarly pristine. There are detailed filmographies, a well-reproduced but oddly random photo gallery, and a trailer that manages to summarise a completely different scenario. As its closing voice-over proclaims, "Caught between a boring husband and a dangerous lover, a passionate woman can commit just about anything". Now you know.--Richard Whitehouse