Indian-American director Jag Mundhra was born into a conservative family where films were discouraged. He was a good enough engineering student to earn his master’s degree in electrical engineering at the University of Michigan but switched to a PhD program in filmmaking.

While his early and later movies were socially conscious, he’s probably best known for his erotic thrillers—he directed Night Eyes, so he can claim to be influential—such as Legal Tender and Tales of The Kama Sutra: The Perfumed Garden and horror movies like Hack-O-Lantern.

More than twenty years ago, Cindy watched as real estate agent Jason Laurence (Matt Roe, Puppet Master) threw her mother to her death. And wow, her mother was an exploitation actress, with a poster in her house that seems to be created from Vampire Circus.

Shannon Tweed’s character, Cindy, embarks on a revenge scheme that begins with involving Paul (William Katt) in a check-cashing crime caper. This involvement transforms Paul from a young idealistic businessman into a cynical crook. The question arises: if you had the chance to aid 1991 Shannon Tweed, much less bed her, wouldn’t you?

Throw in a solid supporting cast—Joseph Campanella, Stella Stevens, Karen Elise Baldwin—and plenty of saxophone, shake it up and add way better cinematography by James Mathers (Night Eyes 3, Syngenor, Silent Night, Deadly Night 5), and you get a movie that shows that the origins of the erotic thriller genre weren’t always quickly made tossable efforts.

What takes this beyond the norm is the scene where Tweed does a striptease wearing a black lace bodysuit, contorts in front of a yarn spiderweb, and stabbing a teddy bear while screaming, “Mommy!” That may have just been words on the page of Steven Iyama’s script, but Tweed transforms a simple turn of phrase into a memorable set piece that helps this transcend normalcy.

You can watch this on Tubi.