Following up last Monday’s post, here’s another review of a couple of episodes of the 2001 softcore TV series THRILLS (also known as “Thrills Magazine”), starring Lauren Hays (pictured above) as Felicia, the owner and editor of Thrills.

THE TAMING OF FELICIA
Written by Alon Kaplan and directed by Lucas Riley, this was the 7th episode of the series, and the first in which the character of Felicia takes center stage. First, the opening scene takes place in some unnamed Latin American jungle. Alaister, a reporter for Thrills (played by David Banks) has been captured by some rebel soldiers, and is interrogated by their leader, who happens to be a beautiful woman (Irina Stemer). He doesn’t get the interview that he was looking for, but she does seduce him and they have a hot sex scene. Then it’s the opening credits sequence, and we’re back in the office.

The crew of Thrills Magazine is on alert because Felicia is in a bad mood, on account of having just gotten dumped her her wealthy boyfriend, who is the latest in a long string of successful men that Felicia has unsuccessfully dated, because men end up getting intimidated by Felicia’s success. She decides to remodel her office, and Brad Batram plays Jamie, the contractor who is hired for the job, although the two of them don’t initially hit it off personally, and just annoy each other. Over the course of the next several days they start talking more, which leads to flirting, which leads to hot sex in her office after hours. Everyone in the office starts to notice that Felicia has a much better attitude and is being nicer. Finally Felicia realizes that Jamie, this blue collar guy, may be more right for her than all the previous White collar guys she’s been dating. A subplot involves Jamie’s sister Marlee (Iva Hasperger) starts dating Alaister and they have sex in the copy machine room in the office, and almost get caught by Felicia. Felicia and Jamie have one more sex scene, this time in a hot tub, before the episode is over.

It’s a good episode. The sex scenes are hot. The only thing I noticed is that in this episode suddenly Thrills was portrayed as some serious political magazine that interviews foreign leaders and U.S. politicians, instead of being about sex. I presume this was done to make Felicia seem like an important person, but it didn’t fit what had been previously established in the series.

Still, Lauren Hays is always a pleasure to watch onscreen. This episode gets FIVE STARS

CLUB PLASMA
Written and directed by Kaplan and Riley again, this was the 8th episode of the series. Antoinette Abbott stars as Thrills reporter Cheryl. The film opens with Cheryl watching as some kind of bomb squad officer (Charles D. Cherrier) is trying to defuse a bomb. Cheryl somehow figures out which wire on the bomb to cut, so she saves the day, and then she and the officer have sex. Cue the opening credits.

In the Thrills office, Felicia assigns Cheryl and Rob another reporter (played by Duke Champagne) to investigate a special night club that is run by a woman who claims to be a vampire. So they go together, and it’s a real gothic-looking place, with candles everywhere. They split up, and Cheryl goes down to the basement where she is approached by a strange man in all black who is also wearing a mask, she tries to leave, but is hypnotized by him and has sex with him. Back out on the main floor, they observe women who drink what appears to be blood. One woman is tied to a bed in the middle of the floor, and the crowd watches as Portia (Catalina Larranaga) the owner, comes out and has sex with her.

The next day, Rob goes back to the club before it’s open, and he finds Portia laying on coffin-like bed, and shows no signs of life (he can’t detect her heartbeat), until she suddenly opens her eyes and seduces him and they have sex. Afterward, Portia falls back into her death-like state and Rob leaves. Back at the office, Cheryl notices Rob acting weird (like wearing sunglasses indoors and having bite-marks on his neck) and become concerned. She goes back to the club that night looking for him, and is immediately seduced by the man in the black mask again.

Who is the masked man? And is Portia really a vampire? NO SPOILERS, but there’s a twist at the end. There’s also another sex scene, involving an actor named Roland Martinez, but I won’t say with who, as it might be a spoiler.

This episode isn’t as good as the others. The sex scenes are hot enough, but part of the problem is Duke Cahmpagne, who just isn’t a very convincing actor, at least not here. All of his lines sound like he’s just reciting them, not really speaking. Very flat, with no emotion. This episode gets just THREE STARS

The two UNRATED episodes are available on a single DVD via iOFFER