Although only a classy porn movie with artistic pretensions, Stephen Sayadian’s cult classic (directed under his pseudonym ‘Rinse Dream’) is extraordinarily prophetic when viewed retrospectively in an AIDS-related context.
A post-holocaust generation has been divided into two groups: Approximately 1% of the population are “Sex Positives” – those whose libidos escaped unscathed after the Nuclear Kiss – and the other 99% are “Sex Negatives” – they want to make love, but the mere touch of another makes them violently ill.
By law, the former have to perform in front of the latter to give them the vicarious thrill of a sensation they are no longer capable of experiencing. The performers are not volunteers and enforcers flush out Sex Positives who are not performing.
At the eponymous Café Flesh, the hard-core activity is amusingly hosted by the club’s delightfully sarcastic emcee Max Melodramatic (stand-up comic Andy Nichols) and accompanied by a vaguely punk soundtrack.
Well made and acted for a film that features only one heavy-duty porn queen (Michelle Bauer, aka Pia Snow), initial intrigue in the plot soon wears off as genre clichés take over, but Cafe Flesh is a visual treat that oozes the 1980s.
Max Melodramatic
Andy Nichols Lana
Pia Snow (Michelle Bauer) Angel
Marie Sharp Nick
Paul McGibboney Spike
Dondi Bastone
Director
Stephen Sayadian (“Rinse Dream”)
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