IslandGuru Who payed the critics

Spoonixel Amateur movie with Big budget

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Anoushka Slater While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

acidburn-10 After recently viewing this somewhat forgotten 80's trashy movie. That's part mystery thriller, part slasher movie. The plot is quite interesting we get a student named Jay Richards who has an affair with his teacher Diana Stevens (Sybil Danning), but that's not all she and her husband want him to break into his elderly mothers house to scare them and of course that goes wrong when grandma pulls out a rifle and the young student runs away, and no sooner a masked stranger is already in the house ready to kill.Okay this movie lacks logic and the storyline doesn't really make much sense, but the who dunnit angle does actually work, and I was geniually surprised when the killer is unmasked at the end. And the chemistry between Eric Brown and Sybil Danning was actually believable and spot on, and the sex scenes were probably the best thing about this movie. But there are several bad points to this movie, like for a start the pacing is quick enough and I did find myself getting bored at times and a lot of the performances were awful and the death scenes simply weren't up to scratch, they lacked imagination like the scene where the girl gets hit with a baseball bat, was just painful and not for the right reasons.But there are a few small blessings in this movie, like Sybil Danning is just simply beautiful and has a gorgeous body, and one of the only cast members to make an actual effort and Eric Brown was okay he had the innocence wide boy routine rather well, despite some rubbish dialogue.All in all "They're Playing With Fire" is not a terrible movie, in fact I found it quite fun and stupid at the same time, but I couldn't help that feel that if this movie was in more capable hands, then this could have been a hell of a lot better.

BloodTheTelepathicDog This film plays like a B-Film Noir from the 1950s coupled with the steamy erotica of the late night cable channels with some Dr. Giggles thrown in the mix. Needless to say, it was entertaining but in a cheesy, not too high-brow kind of way.Sybil Danning plays a sexy college professor married to another professor (Andrew Prine)who stands to inherit a sizable sum of money from his mother once she kicks off. The two espousers decide they can't wait for the dough so Sybil urges her obsessed student Eric Brown to assist them in gaining their inheritance. To persuade the young student, Sybil offers him two famous vices: sex and money.Their plans backfire when mommy proves too much for Eric and chases him off the family estate with a shotgun. As soon as Eric is gone, however, someone else blasts mommy. Eric feels that he is being setup for murder when Prine accuses him of foul deeds, but he can't separate himself from the case due to his attachment to the buxom Miss Danning. The film, which begins as an erotic thriller, then descends into the slasher genre as Eric and Sybil track a masked killer who just might be Sybil's hubby.STORY: $$$ (Nothing special here--just middle-of-the-road. The characterization could have used more work, as well as the overall plot. There are plenty plot devices that just don't make any sense, like their initial plan to have Eric scare mommy by breaking into her house. I mean, you don't read a will for a frightened dame, so what was going on there?) ACTING: $$$ (Nothing special here either. Eric Brown seemed out of place in his scenes with Sybil. Not much of an actor, Eric tries to get by on his grin, but fails miserably. Prine does a fine job as Sybil's odious husband while Miss Danning is in good form as the femme fatale).NUDITY: $$$$$ (This is really the main draw for this film, since it is Sybil at her most obliging. She has a couple shower scenes and three sex scenes. Had there been a better check and balance between the story and Sybil's breast exposure, this could have been a better erotic thriller).

lost-in-limbo But I guess you'd be hard press not to take the risk of getting burnt! "I don't know what he sees in her?" Huh! Well simply who would want to knock back the advancements of the Austrian born blonde buxom Sybil Danning. Oh she sizzles and it's difficult not to ogle, as the director takes every opportunity to focus on her curvy shape in a very desirable manner. Plenty of instances we find Danning in the buff and everything seems to play secondary to her T&A. The highly attractive English professor Diane Stevens seduces her gullible student Jay in a plan crafted by her husband Michael to inherit his family's fortune. However things turn pear shape when murder becomes apart of it.In the 80s Eric Red was living every teenage boy's wet dream, as only years before he was getting it on with another European goddess Sylvia Kristel in "Private Lessons". So the hormones go crazy once again. But while the two films share some similarities, "They're Playing with Fire" is less light-headed being a lot more sleazy and spiteful in mixing elements of popular teenage sex comedies and jarring slasher traits. Holding this exploitation together is a deviously plotted murder-mystery soapish narrative. Even with the paranoid reactions, deceitful manipulation and masked intentions where nothing seems quite as it is. It kind of gets obvious just who's behind it due to the minor red herrings and the clues that sprung up, so we're left to hang around to wait for the motivation for the homicidal madness. It's quite overlong in its quest to reach its messy, silly revelation too. As for the shocks they're surprisingly nasty and bloody, but still clumsily handled by director Howard Avedis and the eccentric script consists of plenty sharp stabs of irony. Covering the film's soundtrack is numerous cheese-grated rock ballads with the seductive title song leading the way. The acting is colourful enough; Danning is a talented actress than just a figure and her strong presence shows it. Red is fitting and Andrew Prine is great as her vain husband. Offering fine support are Paul Clemens, K.T Stevens, Dominick Brascia and Alvy Moore.It's an odd, neurotic and junky combination altogether, but incredibly amusing nonetheless.

Mal O'Dramatic The statuesque Sybil Danning dominates this rather poor film of murder and intrigue.Who could not be impressed at the skilful way she manipulates one of her students, played by Eric Brown onto her luxury cruiser in order to overwhelm him in a way only she can manage.Ultimately, Miss Danning is the only good thing in this film as the poorly scripted plot spirals out of control. It fails to convince in almost every department of a thriller.