Best movie ever!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Adult film actress Alta (lovely Lynn Lowry) gets killed by sleazy sex movie producer Max Pavell (well played to the slimy hilt by George Shannon) while participating in a deadly psychological head game with the scuzzball. Alta's casting agent lesbian lover Camilla (a superbly chilly and calculating portrayal by Mary Woronov) befriends sweet and naive innocent Julie (also Lowry), an aspiring actress who's a dead ringer for the deceased Alta. Camilla cunningly plots to use Julie as a means to exact revenge on Max.Director Theodore Gershuny, who also co-wrote the daring and crafty script with Loyd Kaufman, boldly explores the dark and disturbing themes of deception, manipulation, and the dangerous power games arrogant and amoral adults play with each other simply because they can. Better still, Gershuny takes fine advantage of the New York City locations, neatly captures the lethally seductive seaminess of the 70's Big Apple porn underground milieu, and further tarts things up with a sly sense of spot-on stinging humor that pokes wickedly witty fun at pretentious smut peddlers with high-falutin' delusions of artistic grandeur (the audition sequence in which Camilla interviews a gaggle of pathetic no-talent wannabes in particular is a total riot). The ace acting from a bang-up cast helps a lot: Lowry really flexes her thespic muscles in a juicy dual role, Monique van Vooren vamps it up with venomous gusto as Max's bitchy ex-wife Helene, Ondine contributes a funny turn as catty homosexual Roderick, Daniel Sadur supplies amusing comic relief as tubby cross-dressing loser Gus, and Golden Age adult cinema favorite Jennifer Welles has a nice minor part as Max's kinky secretary. Hasse Wallin's pretty cinematography provides a sumptuous lush look. Kudos are also in order for Gershon Kingsley's eclectic, yet melodic score and the inspired use of the 60's girl group classic "Sally Go 'Round the Roses." As a tasty extra plus, both Lowry and Woronov bare their beautiful bodies with pleasing frequency. A superior soft-core erotic thriller.

In 1973, the year before Lloyd Kaufman formed Troma Studios in order to churn out his particular brand of trashy low-budget B-movies, he helped produce Sugar Cookies, an experimental sexploitation flick starring Lynn Lowry (The Crazies, Shivers) as aspiring actress Julie Kent, who is tricked by lesbian seductress Camilla (Mary Woronov) into helping avenge the murder of her lover.Loaded with dreadfully dull dialogue, languorous scenes of supposedly emotionally intense drama, and of course, plenty of nudity, this sort of ponderous, progressive, art-house styled erotic nonsense might have gone down well with a crowd of enlightened (ie., stoned), sexually liberated hippy types several decades ago, but will seem laughably dated to a modern audience. Even connoisseurs of cult cinema keen to see unconventionally attractive amazonian cult actress Woronov and frisbee-nippled Sissy Spacek-alike Lowry strip off and get it on will probably find this film a struggle.

A year before he founded Troma Studios, Lloyd Kaufman made the sexploitation offering "Sugar Cookies". And while the fact that "Sugar Cookies" is essentially a Troma movie before Troma is interesting from a historical viewpoint, the film itself is only slightly above average. As expected with this type of film, "Sugar Cookies" is thin on the plot. Here is the deal, a sleazy film producer kills an actress but makes it look like suicide. Her lesbian lover then goes out and seeks revenge. That's about it. As a general rule, sexploitation has aged the worst out of all the exploitation genres as it was superseded by the arrival of the porn film, thus rendering many films that would have been considered risqué during the 50's and 60's tame by the 70's. "Sugar Cookies" is a little better in this regard as it does contain a good deal of nudity as well as sex scenes, but it still comes across as being very tame. This wouldn't be as big of problem if this film wasn't so plagued with pacing issues. It really does creep along at a snail's pace at times. Still, there are a few things about "Sugar Cookies" I enjoyed. As far as the more exploitable elements go, the actresses in this movie are very hot and the sex and nudity is well done. As for more traditional elements go, "Sugar Cookies" is well acted and the script is better than I expected, In addition, the first 10 and last 10 minuets are well crafted and engaging, sadly however the rest of the film cannot live up to that, rendering the film above average at best. There certainly are worse sexploitation movies to watch, hell some of them are nearly unwatchable, but the genre also has better offerings as well.

A very early Oliver Stone (associate-)produced film, and one of the first films in the impressive career of Lloyd Kaufman (co-founder and president of the world's only real independent film studio Troma, creator of the Toxic Avenger and, at the prestigious Amsterdam Fantastic Filmfestival, lifetime-achievement awarded filmmaker for over 30 years). Having raised the money for this film on his own, Lloyd wrote this script together with Theodore Gershuni in 1970 and in hindsight regrets having listened to advice to have Gershuni else direct the film instead of doing it himself. But back then he was still inexperienced in the business and it is probably because of decisions like these that he takes no nonsense from anyone anymore. Indeed it would have been interesting to see Lloyd's version of his own script - as one of the world's most original, daring, experimental and non-compromising directors he probably would have given it even more edge than it already has. But as it is we have the Gershuni-directed film. And weather it is due to the strong script, or the fact that he too is indeed quite a director of his own, SUGAR COOKIES is a very intelligent, highly suspenseful and well-crafted motion picture that deserves a lot more attention than it receives. The shoestring budget the small studio (this was even before Kaufman and his friend and partner for over 30 years now, Michael Herz, formed Troma) had to work with is so well handled that the film looks a lot more expensive, indeed does not have a "low budget" look at all. The story revolves around lesbian Camilla Stone (played by enigmatic Mary Woronow) and her lover who winds up dead through circumstances I won't reveal not to spoil a delightful story. This leads to a succession of plot-twists, mind games and personality reform that is loosely inspired by Hitchcock's Vertigo and at least as inventive. The atmosphere is a lot grimmer, though, and some comparisons to Nicholas Roeg's and Donald Cammell's PERFORMANCE come to mind. In this mix is a very original and inventive erotic laden thriller that keeps it quite unclear as to how it is all going to end, which, along with a splendidly interwoven sub-plot with a nod to Kaufman's earlier and unfortunately unavailable BIG GUSS WHAT'S THE FUSS, makes for a very exciting one-and-a-half-hour. Certainly one of the best films in Troma's library, and yet again one of those films that defy the curious fantasy that their catalog is one of bad taste. The DVD includes some recent interviews Kaufman conducts with Woronov and the other leading lady Lynn Lowry (later seen in George Romero's THE CRAZIES), thus giving some interesting insight in what went on during the making of this cult-favorite and a few hints of what would be different had Lloyd directed it himself. Highly recommended.