This World, Then The Fireworks (18)

Prostitution, incest, murder, madness, Gina Gershon in a short, tight dress: this is the cheerfully amoral (yet visually appealing) world of pulp novelist Jim Thompson. Based on one of his unpublished short stories, Michael Oblowitz's film is a sexy, stylised, deliberately overheated slice of noir. Billy Zane is the homicidal grifter who arrives in a small '50s Californian town and resumes his very intimate relationship with lovely, sexy sister (nudge, nudge...) Gina Gershon. Naturally, anyone who gets in the way of their unique loving "friendship" soon finds themselves horribly dead. There are some terrific performances all-round here, and quirky plot twists a-plenty (not to mention a treasurable chat-up line - "are you blonde all over or just where it shows?"), all of which combine to make the oddly-titled This World, Then The Fireworks a strangely engaging movie.

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