"Darker Shades of Elise" is really a pornographic film dressed up as a melodrama. There is certainly something entertaining about watching Elise (played by Becca Hirani) cheat on her boring husband Rick (Tommy Viles) and explore her sexual fantasies with Felix (Arron Blake). Yet there is not one relationship in this movie that is genuine and heartfelt and, therefore, this movie cannot be considered a great erotic film which stretches the boundaries. Instead, this film only has some level of achievement of being a guilty pleasure by showing a few scenes with Becca Hirani taking her clothes off and having sex with different men.

If they were smart, the filmmakers would have realized that their movie could not be anything more than a pornographic flick. Unfortunately, they were not smart at all and made the fatal mistake of adding a whole layer of violence to a film that could have worked fine as a guilty pleasure. I do not always bash movies for their violence, but I do on this occasion for two reasons. First, the film appears to be suggesting that a woman who engages in extramarital affairs deserves to be blackmailed, raped, and subjected to other horrific acts of violence. Such a message is just plain sexist and has no redeeming value whatsoever. Second, the violence comes across as a cynical attempt to make what is frankly a trashy sex film appear serious and important. On that basis, most porn films are far better than "Darker Shades" because at least they acknowledge what they are and do not try to spoil the nudity and gratuitous sex with excessive violence at the end.

Unappealing cast - not only how they look, but who their characters are, and what they do. Terrible camera work, neutering whatever was meant to be erotic, or at least titillating. Less nudity, story and production value than in any of the late-night soft-core flicks on Cinemax or Showtime. Or one of those pulp "photography" magazines that provided cheap thrills before Hef delivered Playboy unto us.

This almost makes the 50 shades movie look good ... almost and that as we all know doesn't count. But back to this, that has a familiar story of a woman having fantasies and a sex drive that her other half apparently can't please. You need two tango and two to cheat on someone.

The games she thinks she is playing - well maybe she should have read the rules. Then again not every affair goes down south like that so fast (no pun intended and the literal going south does take a minute or two as the director states in his commentary). Elise has quite some issues - being convincing and making us really care for her is one of those. And that in the face of what she has to go through ... which is horrible no doubt