(4 of 4)
Heat, a faggot rehash of Sunset Boulevard, is about an aging, braying B-picture movie star (Sylvia Miles) who takes up with a narcissistic stud (Joe Dallesandro). The film was made by the Andy Warhol epigone Paul Morrissey, who, like his master, exploits the sorry selection of freaks who have been recruited for the cast. Thus the audience is invited to have a good laugh at the gargoyle visage of Miles, chortle over Dallesandro's near-autistic blankness, and revel in the antics of an obese motel owner, and a schizophrenic lesbian. The lazy profanity and the grungy, grim quality of Heat's ambidextrous sexuality will be familiar and predictable to Warhol addicts. What is despicable about Heat is the way it both flaunts and mocks the grotesqueries of its cast, who seem generally neither to notice nor greatly care.
· Jay Cocks