Written by J.L. Conners (whom, according to IMDB has no other writing credits, before or since) and directed by Madison Monroe (who directed 14 other films, including The Seduction of Maxine) I found this 2001 film as a double feature on a DVD along with a film called Confessions of An Adult Film Star 2, which I will review next. But right we’re focusing on Love Games.

The film stars Angelica Costello (aka Venus) and Paul Johnson as Monica and Paul Harris, a rich married couple. She’s an ex-supermodel, he’s an ex-internet entrepreneur who sold his company for millions. They seems to be happily married with a rich sex life which they spice up with role-playing. In the opening scene she plays herself, a rich housewife, while he pretends to be the pool cleaner, whom she seduces. Then one day Monica suggests spicing up their sex life by playing “love games”, where they’ll give each other sexual challenges. They involve a couple of their friends in order to help them play the games. Paul teams up with his friend Jake (Sebastien Guy aka Scott Duke) and Monica teams up with her friend Angie (Flower Edwards).

The first challenge involved Monica and Angie visiting a high fashion designer named Pierre (Chris Villa aka Chriss Woods) and convince him to give them a bunch of designer outfits for free. The accomplish this by stripping in front of him and having lesbian sex while he records it on a video camera, after which he’s willing to give them several bags full of outfits.
Then Paul’s challenge involves him and Jake pretending to be pool cleaners who don’t speak any English and going to the home of a rich woman (Nadia Foster), and Paul seduces her while Jake hides behind a bush and films it.

The the 4 of them go to a private black-tie party at the house of a man named Treat Cassidy (Anthony George), who is known for having wild parties where influential people can come to get freaky. But he’s known for keeping everything private. At the party, Treat introduces them to Gina (Dru Berrymore), whom he refers to as his lover. There’s a few other nameless couples at the party. A bowel is passed around where everyone is to supposed to pick out a chip and then match it with someone else. Angie and Jake pick matching chips, but decided that they don’t want any part of this kind of party, so they just leave. Monica doesn’t pick a chip, but Paul does, and his matches Gina’s, and those two have sex while Monica watches. Afterward, Monica looks for Treat, he’s upstairs in his home office. She can hear him on the phone arguing with someone when she knocks on the door. When he lets her in, she asks him for some suggestions for future games between her and Paul, and he gives her a computer disc (remember, this was 2001), which he says has a list of some other kinky couples which he thinks will be interested in playing with them. And then Monica and Paul leave. Early the next morning, two police detectives knock on the door, reporting that Treat was found dead at his home the night before, and it appears that Monica was the last person to be seen alone with him. Jake and Angie eventually hook up, and Gina Ryder plays a stripper that had a connection to Treat.

UH OH.

At that point the rest of the film gets into thriller territory, with Paula and Monica racing to find out all they can about Treat and his background, to see whom could have had a motive to kill him, and clear Monica’s name, before the police think they have enough evidence to arrest her. Monica checks out the CD Treat gave it, and many of the names on it are very famous people, including movie stars and politicians, who could be ruined if their sexual activities were revealed to the public. Gina, whom it turns out was actually married to Treat, says he might have been blackmailing him. So the mystery deepens. There’s still more sex happening while this mystery rages, Jake and Angie eventually hook up, and we get some scenes with a stripper, played by adult film star Gina Ryder.

Overall, Love Games is rather typical of the softcore thrillers that were released during this time period. There’s none of the over-the-top characters or humor of modern softcore films, and attempts to treat the story seriously, giving us an actual plot that’s just an excuse to move us from sex scene to sex scene. That’s not to say that it’s without it’s on internal plot-holes and lapses of logic. I couldn’t help but find myself wondering why Paul and Monica didn’t just tell the police everything, neither one of them had broken any laws or just give them the CD once they realized what was on it, instead of trying to investigate the murder themselves. And the revelation of who killed Treat (no spoilers) isn’t exactly a huge shock. But it had some decent acting and sex scenes, so this gets a Chacebook rating of 4 STARS

Love Games/Confessions of an Adult Film Star, Vol. 2