Film Review
A Darker Fifty Shades: The Fetish Set (2015)
★★★★★
The outstanding performance by Glenda Galeano alone, makes this one worth watching.
First off, this film is not connected in any way to “Fifty Shades of Grey.” I’m sure the “fifty shades” here was added to the title in an attempt to cash in on the hype and success of that film. This one is about four ladies who attend a fetish convention in Texas, to make some money catering to the unique “tastes” of the “unconventional conventioneers.” The opening scene, in which the ladies are together in their hotel room, talking and doing certain “activities,” defines the four characters fairly well.
Bill Oberst Jr. gives a great performance as a Buffalo Bill-like crazed killer who targets the ladies, but it’s the four actresses who really shine in this film, and of those four, it’s Venezuelan-born Glenda Galeano who shines the brightest as Reyna, a streetwise lesbian, who can be as cold-blooded as she can compassionate. One notable scene is where Reyna gives instructions to a freaked-out Mai on what they’ll need to do and get to dispose of the large body of the man Jo (Sarah Nicklin) just killed in the adjoining room, but not without getting a huge swollen-shut eye out of the deal. Tomiko Madoff (credited here as just “Tomiko”) who plays Mai, is actually a real-life fetish model and performer, and the backstory on her character here is probably loosely (or perhaps not so loosely) based on herself. Julia McAlee rounds out the quartet of dames as the seemingly-passive Angel, who’s Reyna’s flavor of the month.
The ending scene reveals something unexpected and it’s inconclusive, which leaves the door wide open for a sequel. Even those who don’t have a stomach for extreme violence or a taste for sex and nudity should be able to handle this one as that stuff is mostly implied in this film, rather than explicit.
About the author
Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Chris flirted with the music business there and in Nashville before joining the U.S. Army and serving in South Korea. He remained in Asia for several years afterwards, teaching English, traveling, and covering the regional entertainment scenes. Currently in a mindset between Seoul and San Francisco, besides Idol Features, you can also catch his writings in the print edition of the monthly magazine, Effective.
