Evil Instinct (1996)
Reviewed by: STSH on 2006-04-04
Summary: Pretty awful
Pretty awful gratuitous gore/soft porn flick, though not without a few good points.

Plot : Clearly a take on Basic Instinct, but loses that thread pretty quickly. There's the famous leg-crossing scene, in which villain Penny Ng (Carrie Ng) actually says "What does this remind you of ? What movie is this copied from ?". There's the cop (Bowie Lam, looking like Francis Ng) getting involved with Penny, who comes under suspicion soon after they have a one night stand (in fact, only about a five minute stand !) when he picks her up in a bar and takes her out to the stockroom for a vertical version of the horizontal tango. (Are there really bars in HK where this happens ?!) But it develops more into a poor copy of Naked Killer.

Acting : Pang Dan as Wendy Pang runs the gamut from passable to dreaful. Carrie does better, but still way below her best. Oh well, at least they're both nice to look at.

Nude/sex scenes : pretty well-done, though long breaks between. They range from hard and nasty (Bowie & Carrie in the stockroom) to almost poetic (unknown woman & soon-to-die man getting down underwater) to screaming (THREE sex scenes intercutting, where four people are killed) to screamingly funny (undercover cop unexpectedly being tied up and ridden by drunken girl) with a few others just dull.

Gore scenes : ludicrously overdone, especially the final scene, which completes the circle from the opening (stockroom) scene. Bowie picks up a girl, very similar to Carrie, but we see the results of his liaison with Penny....... If you're into references to snakes, you'll love this film. From the credits sequence (Carrie twirling a boa) through to Carrie's final scene (where finally is revealed her motives and punishment), there are slithering reptiles everywhere. Otherwise .....

Overall : Not a film I'd care to sit through again.
Reviewer Score: 2