When John Leslie made the transition
from acting to directing in the late 80's, making history as one of
the first adult performers to do so, he began a remarkable streak of
consistency that lasted from 1988 until 1995 when, either by design
or the economic demands of the adult industry, his focus turned from
narrative features to plotless gonzo videos. Proving himself to be a
genre aficionado, Leslie's output from that period could be divided
into three categories. Firstly there were the lighter, more comedic
efforts like
Nightshift Nurses (1988),
Top it Off (1990),
Hot
Scalding (1990) and
Slick Honey (1991). Where Leslie really hit his
stride however, was with several oddities that often crossed over
into the surreal, bordering on the horror and fantastique genres with
films like
The Catwoman (1988) and its companion
Curse of the
Catwoman (1991),
Mad Love (1989) and
Laying the Ghost (1991),
The Chameleon (1989) and
Chameleons (1992),
Dog Walker (1994) and
Fresh
Meat: A Ghost Story (1995). Leslie also proved to be very adept at
crime based narratives early in his career with his second feature
Goin' Down Slow (1988) and his love of noir was apparent in many of
the previously mentioned titles and he would deliver two of his
strongest films in this arena, 1992's
Anything That Moves and 1994's
Bad Habits, the later even marking a pivotal turning point in
Leslie's career.
Told mostly through flashback via
police interrogation, Anything That Moves centers around Lucky
(Selena Steele), a streetwise stripper being questioned about the
death of Joey, the abusive boyfriend of her best friend, fellow
stripper Ronnie (Tracy Wynn). One of Leslie's most character driven
films, Anything That Moves also happens to be one of the most
involving thanks in part to how strongly the characters are developed
and most importantly, the way in which Leslie has the story play out,
cleverly placing certain things in the story out of linear order and
constantly having the audience question how reliable a narrator Lucky
is. By far though the films biggest strength is the friendship
between Lucky and Ronnie, wonderfully portrayed by both Steele and
Wynn with the former giving her finest performance for Leslie as the
no-nonsense Lucky, almost a big sister to the more naive and trusting
Wynn. It's really an endearing story that makes all the various
twists pack more of a punch and gives the film something that barley
any other film in its genre would even think of, heart. It's also
notable in that, despite the story being grounded in reality, Leslie
just can't help himself and serves up a few odd moments along the
way, most notably a man just hanging out in the background of a sex
scene playing solitaire (not a double entendre, he's literally just
playing cards) and in a especially hilarious and random bit, a gang
of rather large black henchwoman give Joey a nice beating.
Slightly smaller in scale but by no
means less ambitious, quite the opposite in fact, is
Bad Habits which
focuses on Sean Grant (Deidre Holland), a successful novelist prone
to nightly encounters with complete strangers. In an attempt to get a
handle on her compulsion, Sean seeks help from therapist Dr. Fisher
(Randy Spears), a con man who attempts to squeeze more money out of
Sean utilizing the theory of past life regression with the aid of
Jack (Mark Davis), a ex-con Fisher is threatening with blackmail.
Although essentially telling three stories in one,
Bad Habits is a
remarkably focused film with each storyline effortlessly
spring-boarding into the next before reaching a nicely wrapped up
conclusion. Interestingly, considering his penchant for the unusual,
Leslie only spends a short amount of time with the actual past life
regression idea, though it does serve as a segue to a dreamy,
soft-focus sex scene. Previously outshined by Ashlyn Genre in
Chameleons, here Holland really gets to show off and it's her
performance that really pushes the film to the upper echelons of
Leslie's filmography as well as Spears who is delightfully scummy as
Fisher. Like most of Leslie's shot-on-video output the film sidesteps
all of the shortcomings of the format and is one of Leslie's most
stylish with a brilliantly surreal scene taking place inside a tunnel
early on. Bill Heid also delivers one of his best scores for Leslie
with some wild free jazz moments that recall Chet Baker's work on
José Bénazéraf's early films.
Anything That Moves has the distinction
of being one of three films from this period that was shot on 35mm,
which at that point was becoming a rarity in the adult industry.
According to AVN, some of the film had to be re-shot after the
sprinkler system accidentally went off where the film was being shot.
The film was the eighth Leslie film to feature Selena Steele who
actually made her debut in The Chameleon and would feature in
Leslie's Hate to See You Go (1988), The Tease (1990), Playin' Dirty
(1991), Oh, What a Night (1991) as well as Curse of the Catwoman and
Slick Honey. Bad Habits is notable for being the last feature Leslie
made for VCA who had produced and distributed all of Leslie's movies
up to that point. Much like Gregory Dark did around the same time,
Leslie would make the move to Evil Angel. At the 1995 AVN Awards,
Leslie would take home both best director trophies in the “video”
and “film” categories for Bad Habits and Dog Walker respectively.
During his acceptance speech for Bad Habits Leslie joked that
whenever VCA president Russ Hampshire was away on vacation they'd try
“breakin' his balls” but nevertheless they made a good video. A
great video, in fact and ultimately an important one as it signified
a new beginning for Leslie who was about to realize his magnum opus.
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