The Bulldance [Forbidden Sun] * (1989, Lauren Hutton, Cliff De Young, Robert Beltran, Viveka Davis, Renée Estevez, Christine Harnos, Samantha Mathis, Renée Props, Svetislav Goncic) – Classic Movie Review 13,232

Lauren Hutton stars in The Bulldance, a very strange 1989 British mystery revenge thriller film directed by Zelda Barron, with a story and screenplay by Robin Hardy.

Lauren Hutton stars in The Bulldance (also known by its original title Forbidden Sun), a very strange 1989 British mystery revenge thriller film directed by Zelda Barron, with a story and screenplay by Robin Hardy.

Mrs Francine Lake (Lauren Hutton) and her husband Charles Lake (Cliff De Young) run an exclusive gymnastics school on Crete, where American girls come to train for the Olympics. Paula (Samantha Mathis) arrives to train with the other girls.

One of a dozen girl students in Olympic gymnastics coach Mrs Lake (Lauren Hutton)’s care is brutally raped at a Crete gym school. It is Paula. Could it be connected with rituals from the island’s past? The gym’s Peeping Tom janitor Ulysses (Svetislav Goncic) is the main suspect, but then there’s hunky coach Jack (Robert Beltran), who has sex with the girls, especially ex-reform school girl Jane (Viveka Davis). But the crime may be linked to the Cretan ritual of the bull.

Yes it can, and yes it is. Four girls vow revenge, in the form of a Cretan ritual named the Bulldance but the revenge goes wrong.

The Bulldance is by and large a creaky, unconvincing oddball thriller, but it is initially well set up, it has an attractive cast, it has its moments, and is easy on the eye, and it is interesting as coming from the writer Robin Hardy, whose most famous directorial work is The Wicker Man. It certainly gets marks for being steamy, creepy and weird.

However Jesse Lasky Jr and Pat Silver are responsible for ‘screenplay collaboration’ and David Marlow is ‘creative consultant’, so it looks like there must have been a lot of other input to Robin Hardy’s script.

Filming took place in Croatia and Yugoslavia, but finance ran out, making completing production a struggle, but they got there.

The cast are Lauren Hutton, Cliff De Young, Robert Beltran, Viveka Davis, Renée Estevez, Christine Harnos, Samantha Mathis, Renée Props, Svetislav Goncic, and Enver Petrovci.

The Bulldance [Forbidden Sun] is directed by Zelda Barron, runs 90 minutes, is made by Filmscreen Productions, Marlborough Productions and Contracts International, is released by Castle Home Video (UK) and Academy Entertainment (US), is written by Robin Hardy, is shot by Richard Greatrex, is produced by Peter Watson-Wood, is scored by Hard Rain, and is designed by Miljen Kljakovic.

Release date: July 1988 (UK).

It is Samantha Mathis’s feature film debut.

Hard Rain are Marcus Myers, Simon Laffy, Steve Phypers and Tom Ashton.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,232

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