When Desire Becomes Contemplation — The Unexplored Facets of Friend of the Family II
Upon release of Friend of the Family II in 1996, both intrigue and anticipation accompanied it. The first film, a soft-erotic nuanced psychological drama dealing with the themes of isolation, temptation, and the confusion between emotional dependence and sexual awakening, had already gained soft-erotic 90s cult film status. Thus, when the sequel emerged, viewers were interested not only in the continuation and development of the plot, but also in the attempt at deepening what, until then, had been a guilty cinematic pleasure.
What viewers encountered, however, was something perhaps more profound. With provocative audacity, Friend of the Family II not only examined the multi-faceted aspects of desire, and the complex dualism of painful sociopathy, but also the ways love and emotional constancy can be escape mechanisms.
The Seduction of Familiar Faces
Central to both films is Shauna O’Brien’s captivating turn as Elke Taylor, the enigmatic character who unsettles the emotional equilibrium of an ordinary family. In Friend of the Family II, Elke’s narrative darkens with added maturity. She is no longer simply the alluring interloper; she is now a tortured woman who must contend with broken remnants of selves that she once powerful and commanding, yet equally human.
O’Brien had already established a fan base from the late-night cable films of the 1990s. However, O’Brien’s sultry on-screen presence and emotional complexity within the character was a rare treat in a field dominated by emotional superficiality.
In an interview, O’Brien recalled her work on the character as resisting the femme fatale trope, and instead described Elke as “a woman who knows how to give love to others but can’t find a way to give it to herself.” This line captures the essence of Friend of the Family II. Beneath the erotic tone lies a profound meditation on guilt, self-worth, and the illusion of control.
O’Brien’s off-screen identity reflected this complexity. She was both an award-winning star as well as a performer in adult cinema. However, she would explain in interviews how audiences misconstrue her performances and fade into her characters. She was not performing for shock value. Instead, she was captivated by cinema that blended a morose aesthetic with a, at times, erotic, and melancholic backdrop. She permeates the scenes in Friend of the Family II with that emotional truth.
From Temptation to Healing
In the sequel, the emotional story that was started in the first film finds resolution. Leke has removed the disarray that she had previously introduced to the other family. However, as the narrative showcases, she is not to be offered any easy exits. In a new setting, she finds a group of emotionally denuded and perturb people. Passion, disarray, and puzzle of perplexity begin to intertwine round her once again.
While the predecessor was built around crossing the boundaries of cinematic, social, and sexual transgression, this sequel resolutely centers on the theme of redemption. As she seeks to form new relationships, she finds. a new set of people. Each, she discloses, has a facet of her own broken and shattered psyche. She is a moment of silence to fulfill her arrogance. She abuts others to alleviate and deal with their pain, however she is escaping her own.
Each character attempts to save oneself by fixing others. Closest to this theme is Elke, who also walks this line as a self-defeating savior. As a paradox, she embodies a savior missing a core part of herself and, as a lover, she is also unable to self-love.
Mirroring the Theme
Director Fred Olen Ray, (aka Nicholas Medina) emphasizes this theme by using gentle lighting and reflective surfaces. Mirrors of various kinds are present throughout the film. The bathrooms, bedrooms and rearview mirrors are constant reminders that every sexual act is relational self contact.
In the World Through a Softer Lens.
Friend of the Family II is visually a more sophisticated late 90s erotic drama. The longing, melancholic and civilized approach to the camera replaces the glossy, pann highly abstract, and formed sterile erotic thrillers of the previous decade.
Each camera position and movement is biomechanical more than theatrical. This evokes a calm and rational approach to erotic sequences that starkly contrasts the drama of the narrative and is an emotional veil to the psychological inversion of erotic.
The score contributing to this textured ambience. Rather than utilizing pulsating beats or excessively sentimental tunes, the soundtrack flows between ambient synths and sorrowful jazz, and conveys the overall sensation of loneliness, even during intimate moments. It is the kind of film that exhales sighs as opposed to moans, an unexpected touch of poetry for the genre.
The Actors Behind the Masks
Apart from the challenging class of soft-core dramas, I particularly value the performance of the actors, and in particular, Shauna O’Brien and Griffin Drew. Unlike so many others, Drew and O’Brien delivered real feeling and passion to roles that could so easily have fallen into being caricatures.
Griffin Drew, who plays one of the film’s central figures entangled with Elke, was also going through her own professional transformation at the time. Like O’Brien, she had come up in a niche corner of Hollywood — balancing between B-movie thrillers and indie dramas — often typecast but rarely appreciated for her nuance. In interviews years later, Drew revealed how roles like this gave her creative freedom to explore emotional depth under the guise of erotic storytelling.
Echoing each other, the two actresses worked in a system that fragmented their talent, a system that prized looks over substance. In Friend of the Family II, that awareness worked to their advantage. Their performances resonate with a profound sense of untapped potential, a consequence of understanding what it means to be judged critically, by both the characters in the narrative, and the audience beyond it.
A Cult Following and the Quiet Reappraisal
Over the years, the film acquired a loyal following even if it did not strike a chord in the rational cinema of the time. It was praised for the emotional complexity it sustained, the subtle tragic undercurrents, and the captivating artistry of O’Brien. Some fans framed the film as a subversive feminist text embedded in the emblem of an erotic sequel, a story of a women reclaiming power through the walled-off circuits of societal vulnerability.
The online discourse centered around a single question: Was Elke free? The film’s ending leaves her fate open, a powerful choice that has kept the film relevant for decades. Was her journey one of empowerment, or was it one of entrapment? Some audiences saw her as a phoenix, while others, resigned, saw her as eternity bound to the same patterns.
What Happened Behind the Camera
Sheridan and the cast worked to make a low budget and a demanding shooting schedule work. Talented and emotionally driven came to the set to deliver their performances and the actors told stories of a humane and positive environment. Though the production used many real homes to shoot for budgetary reasons, the overall production still used studio sets creating the environment where the studio set can be controlled. When there is a budget, the production loses constraints.
The director set a schedule where the actors are given the space to improv and for a layer of performances to be chaos and feel disorganised. Normally, this space is used to make more emotionally driven performances, but was the actors were disallowed having more head space where the emotional work can be unscripted. When actors are set to feelings for the performance, there is innate chaos which can be used to free the more emotionally and creatively potent parts of the work.
Many people can see a line and then change a work using even a few layers.
The Suggested Title
Watching the second season of Friend of the Family, the lingering eroticism of the film strikes me as a reflection of human weakness, the desire to be connected to someone, to someone, or something, to be needed. The film is a reflection of a moment in cinema history when eroticism and storytelling were willing to be paired. The phrase, “needing to be needed,” captures the essence of Elke’s story.
This film also represents an epoch when performers like Shauna O’Brien challenged and transformed the conventionalism of their art into something remarkably beautiful, a harmony of haunting storytelling and sensuality.