Few movies keep sex and death as closely bound together as James Bond III’s Def by Temptation (1990) does. In this atmospheric and sensual (but not humorless) horror movie, Bible-style capital-T temptation is embodied by a blood-thirsty, ostensibly eons-old succubus that disguises itself as a distractingly beautiful woman.
Known only to the viewer as the Temptress (Cynthia Bond), this walking murder weapon with a taste for gold-claw acrylics and bodycon dresses prowls shadowy New York City bars searching for men to pick up. (It’s never that hard for her to fulfill a mission: once a would-be suitor has lit her fresh cigarette or bought her a drink, they’re already entranced.) Those who take up invitations to head back to her place — a cavernous, proverbially red flag-covered apartment worse-lit than a vampire bat’s cave, littered with weird statues, and somehow emanating fog — don’t live to kiss and tell. Like in the movie Cat People (1942), in which its female lead infamously transformed into a homicidal panther every time she was aroused, Def by Temptation sees its Temptress go full vampire the closer she inches to a climax. Apparently she has to do this either to maintain her eternal youth or stay in the Devil’s good graces. It’s never exactly confirmed.
We’re introduced to the Temptress and her behind-the-bedroom-door reign of terror a little before we meet K (Kardeem Hardison), a charming New York transplant who has found enough success as an actor recently to sometimes get recognized. The first time we see him, he’s being posed as the Temptress’ latest victim — she reels him in at a bar one evening by acting faux-starstruck, itching for an autograph. But he’s saved — unbeknownst to him — by the arrival of his visiting best friend Joel (James Bond III). Coming from North Carolina and a devoutly religious family, Joel seems to view this NYC trip as a mechanism to help see his life with clearer eyes. He’s long had sights on following in his late father’s (a cameoing Samuel L. Jackson) footsteps as a minister, but lately has become somewhat disenchanted with the religion to which he’s dedicated almost all his life.
We think we know where this is going once the Temptress and Joel have crossed paths. Bond will probably craft a rather moralistic horror movie about the dangers of temptation — here presented in an ultimate form — as seen from the perspective of someone who considers themselves an outwardly steadfast servant to God. While it’s true that the movie isn’t not working with that premise, its approach isn’t preachy; it doesn’t extol religion or unyielding fealty to God as reliable saving graces either. Though it has lots of satisfyingly ghastly vampire movie-style fun with the Temptress (played with a slinky assuredness by Cynthia Bond, in what unfortunately has become her only film role before she became a critically acclaimed author), Def by Temptation periodically tries out profundity with surprising effectiveness. It usually uncovers it when it’s dwelling in the unrelated-to-the-main-plot anxieties K and Joel face as young men at crossroads.
There are a few efficient scenes of them just talking, reflecting on their small-town upbringing and their current relationships with religion; they lend the movie not only a true poignance but also prevent it from easing into pure schlock. From Joel’s vantage point, the Temptress eventually becomes not a sounding board for misogynistic vitriol but instead his internal conflict over his budding sexuality and losing-strength religious fervor in corporeal form, forcing him to confront parts of himself he’d prefer to continue pretending weren’t there.
Def by Temptation can undermine itself. Its New Jack Swing-inflected soundtrack is clashingly cheery; the main plot is unnecessarily delayed to the point of it almost throwing you for a loop when it appears and then dominates the rest of the film. (Much of the first part of the movie repetitively — though still entertainingly — is just the Temptress seeking and destroying, and we wonder for a while where the film is going.) There isn’t any real suspense that we notice; Bond can’t seem to decide whether we should see the bloodletting as genuinely horrifying or silly. But Def by Temptation’s sincere and clearly thought-over consideration of its themes, paired with Cynthia Bond’s unforgettable femme-fatale performance, do wonders to both allay the film’s missteps and transcend the narrow expectations for a movie with this one’s superficially simplistic conceit.
Peterson Reviews 