Originally titled El Sueño del Mono Loco (The Dream of the Mad Monkey),this is based on the Christopher Frank book. While it has the 90's genre of erotic thriller attached to it, this is very much in the world of the giallo.

To wit: Jeff Goldblum's Dan Gillis is a stranger in a strange land, one of the key tropes of the yellow-tinged thriller, a writer in Paris who has been left behind by his wife and suddenly a single father to his son Danny. A writer by trade, he's brought in by a producer to work with an enfant terrible young director named Malcolm Greene on a script.

Ironically, the actor playing that young director - Dexter Fletcher - would grow up and move on from acting (he was Baby Face in the absurd and wonderful child gangster musical Bugsy Malone) to directing some of today's biggest films, such as Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman.

What draws us closer to the psychosexual domain of the giallo is that Gillis soon becomes obsessed by Malcolm's sister Jenny (Liza Walker from Hackers in her first film). While presented as somewhere in her teens, she's also a lolita who possesses the sexual attention of every man she meets, from our protagonist to her brother.

Miranda Richardson also figures in as Dan's disabled agent who, like everyone in this movie, just wants to get horizontal with one of West Homestead's favorite sons.

I'm not saying this is a good movie. I'm just saying that it's interesting that somehow Goldblum made two movies one after the other - this and Mister Frost - that are borderline bonkers horror experimentations that no one really talks about. This is after he was a star from The Fly and yet here he is, making really strange movies in foreign lands. Leave it to a Mill Creek box set to bring this to my attention.

TWISTED OBSESSION is a very strange, slow-moving and unsatisfying mystery drama that comes as a Spanish/French co-production with a Hollywood cast. Supposedly based on the novel, it suffers from not knowing exactly what it wants to be, leaving it all over the place. The plot is increasingly murky and leads to some uncomfortable moments, but never really goes anywhere, and if you're looking for loose ends to be tied up satisfactorily then you've come to the wrong place. I only watched for the cast, and they don't disappoint; Jeff Goldblum works hard to invest his character with something - anything - but struggles with the part, and who can blame him? Miranda Richardson and Dexter Fletcher are equally underutilised in turn. A pity, as you get the feeling that this might have been something interesting had it had better writing.

I saw this film as part of a set of cheap-o movies. So far, the films in the collection had been total crap.

Then I dropped this one into the player and did a double-take when I first noticed that the dialog and acting were both good.

The next question that popped into my head was, "Am I imagining things, or is this movie also well shot and well lit?" Followed shortly by, "You know, I think this is actually a good film." By the time it reached the scene where Goldblum started screaming, I was totally sold. What a wicked little movie.

1989 was a bad year for film, so I certainly wish I had known about this one back then.