Tags
1980's, Burl Ives, Erotic Drama, Louise Fletcher, Richard Tyson, Sherilyn Fenn, Two Moon Junction, Zalman King
Film Title
Two Moon Junction
Director
Zalman King
Starring
- Sherilyn Fenn as April Delongpre
- Richard Tyson as Perry
- Louise Fletcher as Belle
- Burl Ives as Sheriff Earl Hawkins
If you are looking for a film of depth and sophistication, Two Moon Junction will not be for you. But if you would like a guilty pleasure film of erotic atmosphere and steamy encounters, it should appeal to you. It’s a flawed movie for sure, but its sheer sexuality and style makes it very watchable indeed.
April Delongpre is the beautiful oldest daughter of a Southern Senator who is also an heiress to her family’s large fortune. 
She is engaged to be married to the nice enough Chad Douglas Fairchild, though we see that the marriage is a convenient one in joining with another prominent family. April feels trapped and would like to live her life before marriage, but due to her family, in particular her Grandmother Belle, all put pressure on her to honour the family name. As the days to the wedding continue to move quickly, April becomes riddled with second thoughts. While contending with these doubts, April finds herself something exciting. The thing in question is the hunky carnival hand Perry, who she meets one day while out with her two younger sisters. 
Initially reluctant to accept his blatant flirtations and intentions, she eventually gives into unfulfilled desire and so begins a torrid affair. The steamy affair and encounters between April and Perry take place while Chad and her family are away from home. Yet what April and Perry haven’t bargained for is Belle becoming aware of their passionate attraction and her plotting with local Sheriff Earl Hawkins to put a stop to this affair before the wedding bells begin to ring.
Zalman King has no desire to create a film of subtlety and he hammers this home from the very beginning. It must be said he is a very stylish director who can craft a balmy atmosphere of overblown passions and sexual heat and his skills are very much on show in Two Moon Junction. Everything has a sexy gloss in Two Moon Junction, best seen in the sultry soft focus cinematography and various acts of sexual activity on display. The film practically sizzles with ribald energy and verve that more that compensates for the often unintentionally hilarious dialogue and lack of believability in some quarters. 
The characters are not that interesting and the plot is really just an excuse to have these two attractive people make passionate love and get horizontal as much as possible. Yet with King at the helm, the film retains levels of watchability due to robust sexuality and the smoking hot desires that radiate from the film. And those love scenes are just smoking hot spectacles that get bolder as the film goes on. A reliably slinky score featuring unrelenting synths and loud saxophone is just right for this kind of soft core flick and strikes up the required atmosphere of sordid animal lust.
The cast is good enough, even if most of the characters are caricatures. 
Sherilyn Fenn rises above the underwritten nature of the story to play April as a conflicted girl going through sexual awakening and emerging from her virginal angelic nature to bad girl. Richard Tyson is mainly required to be virile and confident and he does this very well, as well as never seeming to wear a single shirt throughout the film. The two leads have hot chemistry to burn and their encounters are steamy as hell. Louise Fletcher and Burl Ives have their moments as the manipulative grandmother and observant Sheriff, yet they have scant material to work with and the main part of the film is the passion between the two younger and wilder lovers.
It’s often loaded with melodrama and not enough in the way of character development or material, but then again I don’t think anyone will be watching Two Moon Junction for its acting and writing. That honour goes to the sexy cinematography, sensual score and flesh on display that makes the film a real guilty pleasure if ever there was one.
