Would-be starlet Chantal (Misty Mundae) arrives in Hollywood with stars in her eyes, ready to make her big break in the movies. Immediately, she encounters various scumbags and sleazoids who trick her into attending fake auditions. She then falls in with a nest of lesbian photographers (Andrea Davis, Darian Caine, and Julie Strain) who wind up exploiting her just as much, if not more than the creepy men. Chantal eventually shacks up with a call girl (Julian Wells) who promises to help her out, but she predictably uses her too.
Sure, Chantal is little more than a cliched expose on the sordid world of starlets trying to make it in Hollywood, but when it’s Misty Mundae playing the starlet, it just hits different. Now, we all know Misty is beautiful and sexy and fun in her B movies. With Chantal, she gets to prove she is a fine actress as well. She hits the sweet spot between naïve and stupid, and makes you care about her character even when she’s making increasingly bad (and dumb) choices. Misty’s really put through the wringer in this one as she’s forced to strip, gets pissed on, and resorts to eating trash. Misty also has a lot of chemistry with Wells, who plays the hooker with a heart of tarnished gold. Their scenes together really work, even if it’s a foregone conclusion that she’s going to break Misty’s heart.
Caine, Davis, and Strain are equally good as the evil lesbians who corrupt Misty. We’re all used to seeing Mundae, Caine, and Wells appearing in these Alternative Cinema films, but Strain is a welcome addition to the formula. She really commands the screen, especially during her scenes where she demeans the struggling starlets.
It's Misty who gets the best line of the movie when she says, “Why does everything get reduced to sucking and fucking in this town?”
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