Back in February of last year I wrote a review of the film BUSTY TWINS, which I opened by saying:

Originally released in 2005 under the title “Lust Connection”, this is actually a remake of a movie that Wynorski made in 1995 called “Virtual Desire.” I had that one on tape many years ago, but not now. And it’s long out of print, I can’t find a copy of the unrated version anywhere, or else I would have reviewed that first to compare and contrast. I don’t know why Wynorski chose to re-use that plot, I’d like to think it was because he realized that the idea of people using the internet to meet and have sex was something even more prevalent in our society in 2005 than it was back in 1995, and therefor that would make this film more timely if updated for the present. But it’s probably more likely that he just had access to the house that the majority of this film takes place in (the same house that he filmed The Witches of Breastwick 1 & 2, The Breastford Wives, and The House on Hooter Hill in) & was like, fuck it, I’ve got a couple of days, I should make a movie while I’m here. So he called up some actresses (a great collection of softcore AND hardcore talent) and then he just pulled out this old script, changes some character’s names & rewrote a few lines so he could get this done as quickly as possible.

Well, I have finally gotten a chance to rewatch the original UNRATED version of Virtual Desire, and thus I can review it and contrast it with Busty Twins now.

First, once again Wynorski used an alias to direct this, Noble Henry. And while Wynorski was credited as writer for Busty Twins (under the screenname Thaddeus Wickwire), this one is credited as written by Pete Slate. I don’t know if that’s a Wynorski screenname too, IMDB credits Slate with writing one other movie, 1996’s OVER THE WIRE. I also found it interested that Julie Strain is listed above the credits (Julie Strain In Virtual Desire) although she doesn’t have a substantial role in the film.

Anyway, this time, instead of the lead character being an internet entrepreneur named Rick, it’s a former pro-baseball player named Brad (played by Michael Meyer). Brad was married to a woman named Susan who has a sister named Wendy. But they’re not twins, so they’re played by different actresses (Tammy Parks and Gail Harris, respectively). They’re not even full-sisters, Wendy is a younger half-sister (I guess to explain Harris’ British accent). The film opens with Susan being killed, except instead of being drowned in a hot tub, she’s shot while working out in her home gym. All we the audience sees are the killer’s legs, making it clear that it’s a woman, and from Susan’s initial reaction when this women walks in, that it is someone she knows.

As in the remake, Brad has no alibi for the time of Susan’s murder, so the police view him as the prime suspect. Yet, Susan’s sister Wendy immediately believes in Brad’s innocence, even after Brad confesses that he had in fact been having multiple affairs with various women that he’d met online. She even offers to give him a fake alibi, to help him. After receiving an anonymous admission of guilt online, Brad becomes convinced that one of the women he’d slept with must have killed Susan, so he starts reminiscing about his encounters with each of them, actually telling the stories to Susan, as he tries to figure out which of the women was most likely to have done it. What follows is a series of vignettes of Brad with other women in various locations.

The immediate difference from the later remake is that not all of the encounters we see actually involve sex. Some of the women just strip for Brad while he watches. I’ll also note that the character of Wendy acts way more flirtatious towards Brad as they talk about his affairs, than the similar character in Busty Twins did. It’s pretty obvious from the start that she wants him, yet Brad seems strangely oblivious to that fact. At one point while they’re talking in his backyard, she announces that his stories have gotten her “hot” and she proceeds to do a slow and sexy strip tease out of her dress and then jumps naked into his pool, while Brad just sits and watches her as if it’s completely natural that his sister-in-law strips naked in front of him.

Of the sex scenes we get a nice selection of beautiful actresses. There’s two scenes of Brad with Susan, as he remembers having sex with her on his couch and also in their hot tub. Julie Strain has two scenes, one where she takes a shower while Brad watches, and then another where they have sex on his couch. Peggy Trentini and Taylor St. Claire both play women who meet Brad somewhere (one is in the Jury Room where The O.J. Simpson trial was heard and another in a motel room) and strip from him, but they don’t actually have sex. Annette Burger plays a woman who comes to Brad’s house and has sex with him in his home office while Susan was in another room, the Late Lorissa McComas plays a woman Brad meets in Las Vegas. She performs a sex striptease for him and then they have sex on a table. Catherine Weber plays a woman whom Brad plays tennis with, and then after the game they have sex on the tennis court. And Hardcore film legend Shanna McCullough plays a woman whom Brad has sex with on a blanket out in the woods.

There is also the scene where Brad describes having sex while blindfolded with a woman that he’s never seen, in front of a fireplace. We, the audience, see that it was actually Wendy, although she doesn’t tell Brad that it was her.

I guess I won’t spoil the ending, but if you’ve seen Busty Twins, that remains mostly the same. The other differences are slight, just the overall tone of this film is a bit more serious. Like this was trying to be a “real” murder mystery film, with the stripping and sex scenes thrown in to advance the plot, while in the latter film the sex scenes were the primary reason for watching the film. And while Julie Strain gets top billing, in my opinion it’s Gail Harris who is the real star here. Her skinny-dip scene and sex scene are two of the hottest scenes in this film. Ross Hagen plays Detective Crank. And unlike the detective character in Busty Twins, he actually does some detective work here, and seems interested in solving the case, instead of just sitting back and letting Brad do the work. Hoke Howell plays Crank’s fellow Detective Archer, whom we see discussing the case together at Police HQ a few times.

The funniest thing about watching this film today is seeing how primitive computers were, and how little the general public knew of them. As I said, in Busty Twins, the lead is an “internet entrepreneur”, which isn’t something that would have been possible in 1995. In fact, the word “internet” is spoken I think just once, and they never use “email”. Whenever we see Brad online, he’s just typing and reading words that simply appear on his computer screen over a blank background. In one scene where Brad shows Det. Crank, the message of guilt that he receives, he explains that he got this via a special “online program” which he said lets people who have a special code talk to each other from one computer to the next.

Overall, I can’t really say which version of this film is better or worse. It just depends on what you’re looking for, I guess. Busty Twins had better sex scenes, while Virtual Desire has better acting. But they’re both enjoyable films for what they are and so, like Busty Twins, I give this one a Chacebook rating of 5 STARS

Now, I have still been unable to find an UNRATED copy of this film for sale anywhere, either on DVD or even VHS. But, if you want to see it yourself, it’s currently available online for FREE at XVIDEOS!

(NSFW) http://www.xvideos.com/video3825714/virtual_desire