Steven St. Croix plays a frustrated husband whose bark and bite need some serious sedation. And therein lies part of the problem to the viewer's commitment to The Darker Side, Jonathan Morgan's directorial coming out party. (He also wrote the script.)

Rather, you'd like to put a club to St. Croix's noggin as though he were a baby seal but for reasons that can be justified in a court of natural law, and Morgan hasn't helped matters by allowing his comrade free access to shameless posturing in a story about multiple personality.

St. Croix hasn't had sex in two months, vehemently calling his wife Carol (Leena) "a boring piece of ass." Since St. Croix establishes from square one that his shallow character is drenched in emotional pathos, does one really give a rat's ass whether he gets a lease on a new sex life, thanks to Carol's doppelganger, the taunting, defiant, bitchy Liz?

The dramatic vehicle has seen as many reincarnations as Madonna, but Morgan's definition of Liz tops them all. She's so detached in personality, that, evidently, she's capable of making phone calls to herself! Now there's a trick.

Morgan, however, fares better as captain of a salvage crew. He solicits pretty decent sexual offerings particular when St. Croix's co-worker Paul (Alex Sanders) shows up, not to car pool, but car tool Carol only to have Liz call it the way she sees it. Instead of Carol, Sanders takes "Liz" for a spin on the freeway of love featuring some zesty canine-style fucking.

In this three-ring circus of infidelity, Sanders' wife, pretty D.J. Alden screws around with cableman Jay Ashley, affording the viewer mystical contemplation as to exactly what kind of tattoo bathes her ass. Then, for a man who despises the missionary position as much as he says he does, St. Croix's character certainly sees enough of this kind of action in a threeway with Alden and the Liz character.

In another scene St. Croix comes home only to be handcuffed as hookers Tami Monroe and Amanda Rae squirm on an oriental carpet like two silverfish in search of a first edition of Charles Dickens before Leena joins in, allowing Tami to evacuate the scene like O.J. Simpson.

Perhaps in search of a Best Actor nod, St. Croix's character contributes a round of emotions usually reserved for a psycho ward inmate, and St. Croix discovers through Carol's real sister (Nicole London) that there is no Liz, establishing the sequel.

Keep the two-part factor in mind when stocking, and the quaint notion that St. Croix's existential rantings put this one in cult status territory.