BODY FLASH (1984) ****

This is the kind of ‘80s erotica I enjoy.  We live in an age where you can find virtually any XXX movie on your phone.  However, I’d rather dig up and revisit relics like this from a bygone age of simpler, cheekier smut.  One thing is for sure:  They don’t make them like this anymore.

Body Flash was made for the Playboy Channel, and it is a mash-up of the music video, dance, and workout video formats.  (When it was released on home video, it was sometimes paired with the lame sketch comedy special, The Sex and Violence Family Hour, which starred a young Jim Carrey.)  It was meant to capitalize on MTV and the workout video crazes while simultaneously giving the viewer lots of T & A.  It’s only a half-hour long, but it sure packs a lot into that small time frame.

First up is Kim Morris, who does a sexy dance in heels to Taco’s cover of “Puttin’ on the Ritz”.  Kim is interviewed afterwards about her taste in men (“To me, a sexy man is Mick Jagger!”) and her first sexual encounter.  She then drinks fizzing champagne suggestively until it foams all over her and she is forced to do the rest of the interview in the nude.  This is by far the longest segment (about twice the length of the other sequences on the tape), but it kicks things off in fine fashion and sets a pretty high bar for the rest of the performers.  

Yazoo’s “Situation” accompanies the next segment, where Toni Allessandrini appears in a geisha outfit.  Before anyone can make claims of cultural appropriation, she sheds the kimono in favor of a skimpy black leotard and starts to strut her stuff.  When she’s interviewed, Toni talks about her love of dance and sex.  (“Making love is a dance.  The dance of life!”)  

Return of the Living Dead’s Jewel Shepard is next, dancing to Tim Scott’s “Swear”.  She’s kinda dressed like a tomboy (except for her legwarmers) until she strips down to her Flashdance-inspired get-up of a ripped black T-shirt and sexy yellow thong.  Just when you think this segment can’t get any better, she seductively eats a banana.  

Afterwards, Cheryl Baker does an aerobics number while dressed like Olivia Newton-John in the “Physical” video.  This one is set to the tune of another Yazoo song, “Sweet Thing”.  She talks about her love of dancing before stripping down and telling the story of how she banged a rich German dude.  

Tamarah Park is the final dancer.  She does a wild and frenzied number set to Madonna’s “Burning Up”.  She then discusses fantasizing about dancing naked in a room full of strangers and talks about what she likes in her men.  Although this segment feels a little rushed compared to the other dances, Tamarah is hot, sexy, and feisty, and she ends the tape on a high note.