This richly intriguing and beautifully shot drama from the Pachard/Lasse Braun/Alex deRenzy creative with must set some kind of record for the number of times the word "fantasy" is used in the script.

As winner of this month's office pool, Victoria Paris gets her turn at the time-honored sexually repressed housewife role. Of course, like all repressed (and dutiful) housewives, Paris' sex fantasies are always lurking just around the corner ready to strike at a moment's notice. So wearing the shoe that best fits these types of dazed women with high sugar levels, Paris' dreams are incomprehensible, but colorfully managed with. She wakes up in cold sweats over weird images of swirling calliopes; with Pepper, a foreboding cactus plant that looks like a prickly penis; and her shameless, femme fatale sister Samantha Strong in a wedding gown. In the course of the dream, Samantha's getting popped by Paris' husband, Jon Dough. So far Paris' toxic slumbers are making as much sense as a tax instruction booklet.

Maybe the wedding gown's a tongue-in-cheek reference to Strong's earlier anal video, Sam's Fantasy where she also wears a wedding dress, but Dough, who coincidentally was in that cast, doesn't think of that. Instead, being an architect wiht more money than he knows what to do with, Dough does the California thing. He consults a mysterious astrologer named "Fox" who specializes in wild, gratuitous sex scenes with part-time Shiatzu practitioner Rachel Ryan. (Hey, I don't make this stuff up).

Sexual repression, notwithstanding, Paris has other great camera-apt dreams and fantasies - one which involves construction workers from Sausalito. Only problem is, when it comes to the real thing, Victoria goes to offer herself to her husband with the relish of human sacrifice.

Meanwhile back a the ranch, Samantha keeps making goo-goo eyes at Dough whenever she runs into him. But this is like trying to put a bullet hole in water because the two of them never do get it on. Strong's character is the kind that lives out her sex fantasies quite nicely and she picks up men like loose change. So you know she's bound on a collision course with her uptight sister. The resultant sparks make for one of the great confrontational scenes of the year, reminiscent of the Jerry Butler/Tom Byron free for all in Kinky Business 2.

There's a whole intriguing menage of characters here that flicker around like lightning bugs but never get their time to develop, such as Jeannie Pepper, and that may be the only fault of Fantasy Nights.

From a videomaking standpoint, it's absolutely flawless, and the scene transitions are everything you'd expect from a first rate movie; in fact, Fantasy Nights deserves to be a film. And if you appreciate solid acting, Samantha Strong, of all people, will open your eyes. As the proverbial cockteaser, she delivers one of the best overall female performances I've seen in ages. With very modest marketing support, one wonders how this gem of a video slipped through the cracks virtually unheralded. A must, must-have item.