Pets/Review

From The Grindhouse Cinema Database

< Pets
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A sexy girl named Bonnie (Candice Rialson) is driving along the boulevard with her brother (Mike Cartel). When Bonnie wants to stop to get a cheeseburger, her brother gets mean and tells her to hurry up or "he'll come drag her out"! Bonnie decides to make a run for it and ditch the jerk. Meanwhile, a car full of black thugs has pulled up to the fast food joint and they honk their horns at her brother to get him to move. Soon the word "motherfucker" is uttered. When her brother sees Bonnie running away, he chases after her and then slaps her around. Suddenly the thugs pull up and start a fight. Luckily, Bonnie manages to get away from the scene and takes off on her own.

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While walking on the local beach, she meets a young black woman named Pat (Teri Guzman). The two start chatting as they both walk along until they come to a parking lot where they notice a nice sportscar. The owner of the car is an older gentleman named Dan (Brett Parker). When he comes jogging along and sees the two beauties admiring his car and his dog, he soon finds himself taking the two pretty babes for a little ride. Out of nowhere Pat pulls a gun on Dan and forces him to drive to a woody area where she holds him up along with Bonnie's help. We see now that Pat is just a vicious bitch and aims to get Dan's money. He tells her its in a droor at his house and gives her his address. Pat takes off with Dan's car and breaks into his house, not before flashing the gardener as he peeks in the window to see what shes up to. Before Pat arrives back at the spot where Bonnie and Dan are, she takes Dan's shaggy old dog and throws him off a cliff! Nice! Pat decides to ditch Bonnie and Dan altogether and this is where Bonnie decides to have some of her own fun. With Dan tied up she gets him excited, then fucks him. After that, Bonnie is on to her next adventure....

She arrives in a small beach town where she meets Geraldine Mills (Joan Blackman) a local artist. The two begin talking and Geraldine asks Bonnie if she'd like to model for her. Bonnie accepts the offer and gets to stay at Geraldine's pad in return for her work. As time passes, we can see that the women are slowly embarking on a lesbian trist. One night, a knife carrying burglar enters the house, but instead of calling the cops, Bonnie decides to hide him out because she feels sorry for him. Soon after, the two make love, but when Geraldine finds out the man is still in the house, she ends up shooting him. Exit stage right. Bonnie takes off yet again, where she is picked up by a snobby art collector named Vincent (Ed Bishop) who she met a few days earlier at Geraldine's house. Vincent decides to help Bonnie out and let her stay at his mansion. Only she doesnt know that as well as collecting art, Vincent also has a collection of "pets" and poor Bonnie is the latest addition. When Geraldine is brought to the house one evening and is introduced to who Vincent really is, she is shocked. Vincent then explains his theory behind having women as pets and its very interesting.

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Pets was released into American drive-ins & grindhouses in 1974 and is a solid, entertaining sexploitation film. The main thing I liked about the movie was that it has an actual story and isn't just another softcore snoozefest. The actors aren't being hokey or playing it for laughs. It also looks good visually. The shots and cinematography are nice. The music score is very romantic, with its tender "searching for love" theme which contrasts against the lurid storyline. For fans (like myself) of the late exploitation film siren Candice Rialson, this was her first movie and you can see from the start she had an amazing charisma and was so beautiful to look at with her blonde hair, blue eyes and gorgeous figure. I certainly can't fault ol Vincent for wanting to make her his pet!


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Peter Roberts is the co-founder/editor-in-chief of the Grindhouse Cinema Database (GCDb) and contributor to the GCDb's sister site Furious Cinema. A Massachusetts native, he is an avid film fan that has been immersed in the world of entertainment and pop culture his entire life. He is a professional digital media designer and educator.

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