If you’re anything like me, then the first page of Playboy you always turn to is the centerfold’s fact sheet. “Who is she as a person?” you ask yourself as you enjoy her witty insights regarding her likes, dislikes, ambitions and turns both on and off. It’s only then — with some reluctance — that you take a look at the photographs that represent the rest of her appearance in the magazine and appreciate them in your own special way for a few brief, energetic minutes.
Thankfully, for those of us movie buffs who truly care about who our masturbation fantasies are as people, there’s Posed for Murder, a somewhat-forgotten, late-’80s thriller dedicated to the travails of a glamour model trying to make her way in a world full of asshole publishers, sleazy agents, sleazier movie directors, sick moms, convict ex-boyfriends and psychotic, body-building stalkers-cum-serial killers.
Charlotte Helmkamp (Miss December 1982) is clearly cast against type as Laura, a hot brunette with a bangin’ body whose photos in the low-rent Thrill have paid the bills, but who longs for the kind of respect that’s synonymous with being a terrible actress in low-budget horror films. While she pursues her dream in-between workouts and photo shoots, she barely has the time to notice that all of the people around her are turning up kinda dead.
Posed for Murder is one of those movies that does nothing right, yet still manages to be a fun time. Just sleazy enough to leave you tumescent, but not so much to make you feel guilty afterward, it’s a so-bad-it’s-good fiasco that deserves to be much better known among aficionados of this sort of thing. —Allan Mott