Available from eI Independent Cinema | Buy at Amazon.com | Review by Doug Waltz
On the surface, SINFUL is a pretty straightforward story. Lilith (Misty Mundae) wants to desperately have a baby, but she has already lost four children to miscarriage. Aisha (Erika Smith) has the perfect husband, the perfect townhouse and now, she is pregnant. Lilith wants what Aisha has by any means necessary.
This can only end one way and if you watch the news at all you see it coming from a mile away.
If it wasn’t for Tony Marsiglia, this would be a horrid, direct to video piece of drek. But, the man who gave us the superior LUST FOR DRACULA and DR. JEKYLL AND MISTRESS HYDE knows his stuff. Head honcho of ei Independent Cinema is fully aware of this and he gives Tony the opportunity to make what may be one of the more bizarre films to be released this year. Raso even goes so far as to let Tony shoot in 16mm film instead of the standard DV that is commonly used by the company.
Sometimes, Michael Raso shows that he knows what he’s doing and SINFUL is one of those times.
The performance that Misty gives outshines anything that her counterpart/alter ego, Erin Brown is capable of. Lilith is completely insane. She knows she wants a baby. She knows she deserves a baby so, why shouldn’t she have one? It doesn’t help that Aisha and her husband have this hippy, new wave way of looking at stuff. They give all of their extra money away and believe that what belongs to one belongs to all. The fact that they don’t see that their neighbor is deranged is their own fault. They’re kind of asking for what they get in the end.
When Lilith’s husband, Jim, brings the unborn fetus from their first pregnancy to a dinner party and proudly announces that he keeps it in the refrigerator behind the beer, why didn’t they move out? Someone brings a fetus to one of my dinner parties and…okay, that might be cool in a deranged way, but if you’re in a move and this happens; LEAVE!
The performances by the two male leads are nothing special and they serve their purpose, but the ladies run away with this one. Erika Smith is smoldering one second and beaming with newfound motherhood the next. Her ability to change emotions like that is nothing short of spectacular and hopefully, ei Independent Cinema will realize what they have on their hands and keep the young lady around. She would be a suitable replacement for the recently departed Misty Mundae.
And then there’s Misty. I can understand her wanting to move on to bigger and better things, but in both the Masters OF Horror episode she is in and the film, THE LOST, I’m pretty sure she’s playing a naked lesbian. Not much of a stretch from her old days at ei. In SINFUL, she is given a part that any actress would die for and she executes it perfectly. And, if that wasn’t enough, if you thought that videotape made her look good, then you must experience her on film in the hands of a master like Marsiglia. She is stunning to behold and definitely the best work that she has ever done.
It almost seems like a crime that they waited so long to release this film. It’s a shame they didn’t try for a theatrical release. People would have lined up in droves to see this flick.
The DVD is a little light with a tiny Misty interview and an even tinier featurette of behind the scenes stuff. It’s good to see that they let Marsiglia do an informative commentary at the very least, but it would have been interesting to go further behind the scenes to see the film being made.
Marsiglia has announced that his next film will be an adaptation of FRANKENSTEIN. If Misty knows what’s good for her career, she’ll be back for this one.
