SHINING SEX (1977) **

Lina Romay stars as an exotic dancer named Cynthia who does the titular dance number, which is nothing more than her taking off her little chain mail bikini and rolling around on the floor naked.  She catches the eye of the older, experienced Alpha (Evelyne Scott) who invites her back to their home for kinky sex.  We eventually learn Alpha is a being from another dimension who is using Cynthia for sex to gain knowledge of our planet.  (That’s just fancy talk for saying she keeps her locked up and ravages her again and again.)  After a LOT of lovemaking, Alpha coats Cynthia in a mysterious shimmery substance that will kill anyone who has sex with her.  

After a strong start, Shining Sex starts to fall apart as it plods from one interchangeable sex scene to the other.  They contain all the unnecessary zooms, nonexistent editing, and undisciplined close-ups of female genitalia you’d expect from director Jess Franco (who has a supporting role as the wheelchair bound doctor who briefly looks after Cynthia).  Lina is lovely, gets naked a lot, and participates in some near-hardcore sex scenes.  However, the pacing is listless, the running time is insurmountable (it’s over 100 minutes), and the droning music on the soundtrack almost put me to sleep.  

Things get particularly dull in the third act.  It’s here where Scott makes Lina go to Africa to seduce and kill a man.  If the whole movie was just her getting naked, having sex, and killing people with her lethal pussy (it just looks like someone poured glitter over her crotch) it would’ve been okay.  Unfortunately, it takes 80 of the 100 minutes running time to get there. 

Still, I admire the way Franco can rent a hotel room, a wheelchair, a jar of glitter, some willing naked women, and crank out a movie with his cinematic trademarks/fetishes on proud display.  He does at least give us one legitimately steamy scene where Scott gives Lina an oil massage.  Some laughs can also be had from the fact that Lina’s dubbed voice makes her sound like Betty Boop.

The biggest laugh comes when Alpha’s slave tells Lina, “I was immunized a long time ago. I can still make love to you even though your vagina has been contaminated with this deadly matter.”