The upper tier of cable became filled with erotic thrillers after dark. While the premium channels such as HBO, Showtime, Cinemax and The Movie Channel would run the R-rated cut, USA’s Up All Night would slice off the extremely naughty bits. Actors and actresses would enter the bathroom, turn the faucet to the shower and the scene would abruptly change to a bar or commercial. Up All Night hosts Gilbert Gottfried and Rhonda Shear would tease the audience about what they missed. For a producer of an erotic thriller, the “edited for TV version” was great marketing since it meant that the half-awake would remember during the week to pick up the VHS cassette tape on a visit to Phar-Mor or Video Plaza to see all the showering goodness. Skin Max’s double feature of Test Tube Teens From the Year 2000 and Rebecca’s Secret has plenty of showering moments while they borrow plots from classic films.
Test Tube Teens From the Year 2000 (1994 – 77 minutes) is a variation on The Terminator. In the year 2000, the government has made having babies in a test tube the only way. All other have been outlawed along with anything that goes along with those ways. Professor Dorn (Star Wars: The Clone Wars’ Ian Abercrombie) notices his students Naldo (Pumpkinhead‘s Brian Bremer) and Vin (Tango & Cash‘s Christopher Wolf) are starting to get lusty. This leads to a mini-revolt in the classroom when Dorn dares to tell the kids the truth of once how things were for teenagers. This leads to security coming down on them. Naldo, Vin and Reena (The Bikini Carwash Company’s Sara Suzanne Brown) escape using a time machine that takes them back to a time when Professor Dorn was teaching at an all-girls boarding school. Reena fits in with a change of clothes. Vin and Naldo need to transform themselves into girls so they can lurk about undetected. They discover that the person who squashed the fun out of life with their puritanical outlook is Principal Camella Swales (Friends‘ Morgan Fairchild). She is the future president that ruins it all. Can the trio of teens come up with a way to stop her before a cyborg from the future tracks them down? And can the teenagers from the future enjoy the risky business of the past?
The movie isn’t quite an erotic thriller, but it is a science fiction movie with thrilling scenes mixed with erotic elements. There are laserguns fired so it’s more than an homage to ’80s Teen romps. There were no laser blasts in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The film was made Charles Band’s Full Moon Entertianment so there were plenty of props and sets reused from recently made films by the low budget company. The references to other science fiction films aren’t too out of control since they also need to have time for R Rated encounters at the girls boarding school. Supposedly Morgan Fairchild had no idea about the hook up scenes that were put in the film and thought she was making a goofy science fiction film.
Rebecca’s Secret (1998 – 82 minutes) is supposed to a mixing of Victoria’s Secret lingerie company with the French film Diabolique. Rebecca (Midnight Confessions‘ Amy Rochelle) is the namesake of a woman’s underwear company, but her husband Jonathan (E!’s Mysteries and Scandals‘ Michael Baci) is really in charge. While putting together the catalog, Jonathan likes to test out the new models. He’s also having an affair with one of the main employees. Rebecca finally has enough and goes a little too far. Rebecca and Jonathan’s mistress have to join up to dispose of the body. A detective investigates what happens and does suspect the two women. It’s hard to keep up with the plot since Ellyn Michaels keeps lavishing on the wardrobe-less scenes. The movie opens with Rebecca skinny dipping in a pool. She wakes up from this dream and immediately strips down to take a bath. This turns into her husband and her getting freaky in the kitchen. My favorite scene is when the detective comes to question a suspect and when they go inside, the film cuts to a couple in bed. When the couple wrap up, the movie cuts to a back porch with the detective talking to the suspect. Director Ellyn Michaels knew her audience wasn’t going to be glued to the plot. Rebecca’s Secret is we really don’t need to know the ending. The filmmakers do a horrible sound mix for the final scene so that the soundtrack squashes the big reveals. Yet it’s not like you can feel cheated by the sloppiness.
Test Tube Teens From the Year 2000 and Rebecca’s Secret is a double feature that does its best to emulate two classic films they’re emulating. You might get slightly confused about which version you saw. The ’90s Erotic Thriller versions reimagined the characters doing a lot more showering.
The video is 1.33:1 full frame. The films were made for home video and cable channels so this is their true aspect ratio. They also appear to have been transferred off a standard video master. I’m guessing the movies were shot on film, but edited on video since VHS was their core audience. This was a popular approach to post-production for TV dramas in the ‘80s and early ‘90s. The audio is Dolby Digital Stereo 2.0 which was also the original mix for the VCR crowd. The movies are not subtitled.
Trailer Gallery includes Lap Dancer, Illicit Dreams, Rebecca’s Secret, Test Tube Teens From The Year 2000 and Sex Roulette. All the movies are coming out from Skin Max in the coming weeks on double feature DVDs.
Skin Max presents Test Tube Teens From The Year 2000 & Rebecca’s Secret. Directed by Ellen Cabot & Ellyn Michaels. Screenplay by Kenneth J. Hall & Ellyn Michaels. Starring Ian Abercrombie, Brian Bremer, Christopher Wolf, Sara Suzanne Brown, Michele Matheson, Don Dowe, Tamara Tohill, Laurel Wiley, Amy Rochelle, Lauren Hays, Michal Baci and Morgan Fairchild. Boxset contents: 2 movies on 1 DVD. Rating: Rated R. Release Date: January 24, 2023.
