In the mid-1990s, when erotic thrillers were all the rage, Playboy’s production group made a handful of direct-to-video movies to get in on summadat milky-white-behind action. First out of the gate from the House That Hugh Built was Cover Me. For coming from a nudie mag, it has far too much Elliott Gould.
Devilshly cute Courtney Taylor, who most notably vamped it up in Prom Night III: The Last Kiss, plays Holly, a gorgeous female cop who goes undercover as a centerfold model (and then, logically, a stripper) to snare Dimitri (soap regular Stephen Nichols), a serial killer who has cottoned to murdering gatefolds. Stranger than that, Dimitri seduces and then offs these torso-stapled beauts while he’s dressed in drag, replete with dripping makeup and bubbly voice.
Dimitri commits such acts because, as we are shown in grainy flashbacks, his momma used to force him into girls’ clothing as a child. Meanwhile, Holly won’t quit stripping because, as we are shown in slow-motion dance sequences, she realizes she actually likes having a wad of dirty dollar bills shoved into her panties by the hands of greasy strangers, dammit.
Directed by Michael Schroeder (Cyborg 2 and Cyborg 3), Cover Me is as laughable as Taylor is perky and scorching. Ironically, the film often garners its biggest inadvertent chuckles during its sex scenes, which feature intricate light shows, rear-projection images (not the anatomic kind of rear, mind you) and, when Schroeder feels like it, booby.
The Terminator’s Rick Rossovich was the lucky man who nabbed the role of Bobby, Holly’s cop boyfriend. Plumpy Paul Sorvino (Goodfellas) yuks it up as Bobby’s partner until he gets strangled while sitting in his car. Corbin Bernsen (The Dentist) plays a porno king, and thoroughly convinced me of his oily nature. But it’s Taylor who rules the show, making it worth the watch. (Well, okay, just parts of it.) Whatever happened to her? —Rod Lott