A RECIPE FOR SEDUCTION (2020) COMEDY PLAYED STRAIGHT-FACED AS LESLIE NIELSEN

A RECIPE FOR SEDUCTION (2020) – This 15-minute short was put together by KFC and Lifetime Television in what deserves to be recognized for the intentional comedy that it is! Yes, it would be even funnier if it wasn’t trying to be, but too many reviewers apparently miss the point.

I love Bad Movies as much as anybody, so I settled in to finally watch A Recipe for Seduction ready to laugh at it based on reviews implying its ludicrous premise was being played straight. Instead, I wound up laughing at how perfectly this short film/ comedy advertisement parodies Lifetime Television’s steamy romance flicks.

Our characters:

MARIO LOPEZ plays a hunkified COLONEL HARLAN SANDERS of KFC fame. One look at the way he’s made up should have alerted grumpy critics to the fact that this thing is not to be taken seriously! Hell, his makeup is just a few adjustments away from making him a hunkified Orville Redenbacher, but we’ll never get to see THAT parody because of how badly misunderstood A Recipe for Seduction was.

This A.C. Slaterific Colonel Sanders/ Sid Dithers is a master chef at a ritzy restaurant but at heart he wants to use his secret recipe for fried chicken to capture the world’s taste buds and stomachs despite the scorn his ambitions receive from the snobbish rich pigs he works among.   

JUSTENE ALPERT is JESSICA MANCERA, an incredibly beautiful young lady engaged to the prickish and spiteful scion of an Old Money family. Jessica has begun to have second thoughts about her boorish intended husband, and when she meets her family’s new chef Colonel Harlan Sanders she realizes that this wistful dreamer is her true soulmate.

If only the big lug-of-indeterminate-age would ignore the class differences which separate them, they could be very happy together. Jessica and Harlan are clearly falling for each other, but there’s villainy afoot! 

TESSA MUNRO plays BUNNY MANCERA, Jessica’s equally beautiful mother, who embodies Soap Opera and Gothic Romance villainy so hilariously she deserved to become America’s new Queen of Comedy. Again, though, too few people appreciated A Recipe for Seduction for what it really was. Those same people probably thought those Shemp’s Beer ads from years ago were straight, too.

At any rate, Bunny is furious when her daughter tries backing out of her engagement because she’s been counting on the massive wealth of Jessica’s fiance to keep her own lavish lifestyle funded. Her late husband left Bunny and Jessica with nothing but debts and it’s getting harder and harder to keep up appearances.     

CHAD DORECK is BILLY GARIBALDI THE THIRD, the rich jerk that Jessica was engaged to. Doreck masterfully sends up every smug jackass Designated Villain in Lifetime Movies. And Hallmark Movies for that matter, if Hallmark Movies featured steamy sex scenes.   

Billy has been having an affair with his fiancee’s bitchy mother and she coerces him into destroying her daughter’s new love interest – our boy/codger Harlan Sanders! Mr. Garibaldi plots to steal Harlan’s secret recipe to crush his dreams of spreading finger-lickin’ good chicken to the masses.

On the downside, A Recipe for Romance goes on a bit too long. With four or five minutes chopped off it would be tighter and more enjoyable. Everyone plays their part perfectly, but things do tend to drag after a while.

SPOILERS:

The villains get theirs while Jessica and Harlan end up together in the end. We even get a teaser for a potential sequel as Bunny and Billy resolve to rise from the ashes to destroy our hero and heroine.

A Recipe for Seduction is good for plenty of laughs, with even more coming from the way so many IMDb reviewers don’t get the fact that it’s supposed to be trope-ridden and ridiculous.

FOR MY COMEDY HALL OF FAME: PARODY DIVISION CLICK HERE.