Review of Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me (1992)

Happy Tuesday, everyone. I hope you’re having a great St. Patrick’s Day! Before I tell you about this movie, I would like to preface by saying it is marketed as a comedy movie. There is also a very active community surrounding it on Facebook with 1.7k members. If you are one, please don’t read this, because I don’t want you to get mad at me. I would also like to say that I will summarize this movie to the best of my ability, so I apologize for any errors. This movie is confusing and weird. As of right now, Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me is free on Tubi, so you all can watch it for free before you read the rest of this article. By the way, I recorded my second (and final) podcast special this weekend, and it’ll be out soon, so stay on the lookout. Otherwise, hope you enjoy, and spoilers ahead!

twinlle and eli, taken from tubi

Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me is a “comedy” directed by Joel Hershman and released in 1992. The movie follows a young man named Eli and his romantic disposition toward quirky, wild women. The opening scene depicts a chaotic and unsavory wedding between Eli and his fiancée, Twinkle. He apparently gets fed up with Twinkle and decides to murder her while running away from the altar, where he must assume a new identity and live in a trailer park (not entirely sure how he ends up at the park) in SoCal. Here, Eli meets an adult film actress and exotic dancer named Sabra, who is insane. Within the first night of them meeting, she has intercourse with him and handcuffs him to the bed to prevent him from escaping. Handcuffs play an integral part in this film, but not for any sexual reasons, just because Sabra is a psychopath. When Eli finally wakes up, confused and worried, a younger girl tends to him, frees him from the cuffs, gets him a class of chocolate milk, and introduces him to her pets. This girl is Dannie, the seventeen-year-old sister of Sabra, who wants to study to become a lab assistant because they “do less work than actual veterinarians,” and she has a multitude of pets. Dannie is characterized as sweet, innocent, and much smarter than Sabra, which is strange considering Sabra seems to be on the older side and would be the more responsible one, yet she is very, very rude to Dannie. Their parents are not in the picture and, to my knowledge, are never mentioned. For the middle part of the movie, we get to see multiple scenes that essentially rework the same activities: meeting the wacky characters who live in the trailer park, reinforcing how much Sabra wants to have sex with Eli even though he has no interest in it anymore, and showing how much Dannie and Eli are forming a familial bond with each other. Eventually, Sabra becomes so jealous of how much time Eli is spending with Dannie that she has her sister’s dog put down at the vet. Seriously? Are you kidding me, Sabra? Do you think that’s funny? Anyway, their response to this is to KILL SABRA, they straight up SLIMED HER OUT on the street, in broad daylight. Her death, evidently, ruins everything, forcing Eli to tell Dannie about his past murder, and forcing them to live out a secret life in Brazil. That is, until his ex-wife Twinkle comes back and finds them in their secret hiding space trying to kill them both, but don’t worry, they finish the job this time and kill not only her, but the man who was helping him forge a new identity. That’s it. That’s the ending. I forgot to say that the thing I didn’t want to happen, happened: Dannie slept with Eli toward the end of their adventures around the trailer park, and I am disappointed in them both.

movie poster taken from rotten tomatoes

The way I tried to describe this movie is not supposed to be confusing. I described it to the best of my ability, but this film is kind of hard to keep track of, which isn’t completely lost on me. Obviously, if you overwhelm the audience with excessive suspense, drama, and death, the piece will feel inherently suspenseful. I just don’t think this movie does it tastefully. I would think the Lana Del Rey audience on Tumblr would enjoy this movie (minors having sex with adults, trailer parks, murder, marriage gone wrong, etc.) if it weren’t so action-packed. I think those movies tend to focus on aesthetics and visuals. I will say, though, that the soundtrack has some impressive artists. There were two Violent Femmes songs written specifically for this movie, some Pixies in there, and even The Cramps. The theme song is very goofy, though, and if I were directing this movie, I would market it and develop it as more of a drama rather than a comedy. I do not think this movie was very funny. I might just be saying that because this movie takes place 30 years ago (and because I don’t think sexist humor is funny, blah, blah, blah), but it was also very confusing, and I was lowkey scared for what would happen next the entire time. I can also tell that a man who thinks the legal age of consent should be lower wrote this, because even though the plot was set up to present Eli as a father figure to Dannie, she practically gives herself to him at the end of the movie because he’s been nice to her. I’m not even exaggerating either! Eli is literally just some guy’s OC that women throw themselves at, and he is the only one who can say no. I’m very disappointed in both of them for engaging in that kind of behavior together, especially because Dannie is SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD. She tries to justify this age gap right before they have sex so much, but she sounds so foolish because, at the end of the day, that is a CHILD, whether you like it or not. I will be using some colorful language if I continue to write this post, so that’s it, I guess.

Thanks for reading, everyone. I will not be having a show next week, March 24th, because I will be on spring break! Hopefully, I will have my blog Instagram set up by my next show, which will be on March 31st. See you guys after the break!

Happy Spring!

Mila