I admire writer-director David Stanley because he makes that extra effort (in his scripts) to keep the story interesting - an increasingly rare element in these waning days of narrative porn. His inventiveness is on display in" Once Upon a Crime", a wafer-thin soufflé of a feature that manages to hit the spot unpretentiously.
Perhaps the most empathetic of Wicked girls, Kirsten Price is well-cast as author of children's books, who is under-appreciated by husband Barrett Blade, overplaying his unlikable screen persona as usual (but I'm glad to see him in front of the cameras, now that he is currently perpetrating some really bad features after the Peter Principle elevated him to the director's chair).
Director Stanley gets cute by illustrating for us Kirsten's fantasies, both those she writes for her kiddie public and those she dreams up while asleep. They are set in an anthropomorphic world of Bees, where much of the humor comes from the ridiculously low-budget approach to sets and costumes. (I took this to be an in- joke slap at those massive expenditures Wicked has authorized over the years for Brad Armstrong's over-produced "serious" fantasy/sci-fi films, while poor little Dave is left with Adult's version of a B-movie budget.)
Basically the actors wear little antennae you can pick up for a buck in a novelty shop, and the backdrops are more abstract than suggestive. One dynamite sequence features the great starlet Lindsey Meadows (I ordered about a dozen of her movies after watching this one) as Bee Princess getting humped -she's a bee who wears a garter belt, and folks not familiar with Wicked will have to grin and bear the fact that the drone who humps her must wear a condom, fantasy be damned.
Kirsten later appears as the Queen of the Bees, and incites a mini-revolution by mating with worker bees, much to the consternation of the King (played by Blade in a loud Bee sports jacket of the proper yellow and black colors -they don't call them yellow jackets for nothing).
The key subplot here is that Randy Spears, overacting as usual, plays the somewhat sinister (thanks to Spears' weird facial expression) pool boy/handyman, while lovely August is the Latina maid, whose accent keeps fluctuating. Blade keeps up racist patter regarding them, indicating Stanley was ahead of Donald Trump in the audience baiting department.
The film's title telegraphs the key plot twist, and perhaps in a desire to wrap things up quickly once that XXX content is completed, Stanley plays fast and loose with the mechanics of how the criminals will profit. At any rate, he's not trying to be the next Hitchcock, but rather to titillate the viewer with some switcheroos that are a welcome relief from today's monotonous porn.
Meadows, Price, August and a guest role for Ryder Skye are all arousing, making this hardly memorable programmer worth watching.
Perhaps the most empathetic of Wicked girls, Kirsten Price is well-cast as author of children's books, who is under-appreciated by husband Barrett Blade, overplaying his unlikable screen persona as usual (but I'm glad to see him in front of the cameras, now that he is currently perpetrating some really bad features after the Peter Principle elevated him to the director's chair).
Director Stanley gets cute by illustrating for us Kirsten's fantasies, both those she writes for her kiddie public and those she dreams up while asleep. They are set in an anthropomorphic world of Bees, where much of the humor comes from the ridiculously low-budget approach to sets and costumes. (I took this to be an in- joke slap at those massive expenditures Wicked has authorized over the years for Brad Armstrong's over-produced "serious" fantasy/sci-fi films, while poor little Dave is left with Adult's version of a B-movie budget.)
Basically the actors wear little antennae you can pick up for a buck in a novelty shop, and the backdrops are more abstract than suggestive. One dynamite sequence features the great starlet Lindsey Meadows (I ordered about a dozen of her movies after watching this one) as Bee Princess getting humped -she's a bee who wears a garter belt, and folks not familiar with Wicked will have to grin and bear the fact that the drone who humps her must wear a condom, fantasy be damned.
Kirsten later appears as the Queen of the Bees, and incites a mini-revolution by mating with worker bees, much to the consternation of the King (played by Blade in a loud Bee sports jacket of the proper yellow and black colors -they don't call them yellow jackets for nothing).
The key subplot here is that Randy Spears, overacting as usual, plays the somewhat sinister (thanks to Spears' weird facial expression) pool boy/handyman, while lovely August is the Latina maid, whose accent keeps fluctuating. Blade keeps up racist patter regarding them, indicating Stanley was ahead of Donald Trump in the audience baiting department.
The film's title telegraphs the key plot twist, and perhaps in a desire to wrap things up quickly once that XXX content is completed, Stanley plays fast and loose with the mechanics of how the criminals will profit. At any rate, he's not trying to be the next Hitchcock, but rather to titillate the viewer with some switcheroos that are a welcome relief from today's monotonous porn.
Meadows, Price, August and a guest role for Ryder Skye are all arousing, making this hardly memorable programmer worth watching.