Buzz Drainpipe Reviews“Sins of Dorian Gray (1983): Eternal Youth in Shoulder Pads and Smoke Machines”

There it is again—that glint of polished chrome in the eye, that perfume-soaked breath of Satan exhaled through a Hollywood casting call. Sins of Dorian Gray is not so much a movie as it is an aesthetic séance, conjuring Oscar Wilde’s ghost into a 1983 TV broadcast laced with neon halos, cocaine whispers, and Anthony Perkins grinning like a jackal who just swallowed the script.

Dorian’s a woman now—and that changes everything. No more gentleman’s clubs and velvet waistcoats. Instead, it’s glimmering L.A. nights, wind machines on photo shoots, and the unsleeping eye of the camera. Belinda Bauer, a walking paradox of icy detachment and burn-your-hand sultriness, plays Dorian like a Vogue mannequin possessed by regrets she doesn’t yet understand.

And then there’s Perkins, slithering in like a Mephisto rep from Paramount. His character Henry Lord isn’t seducing Dorian with flowers and wit—he's offering her immortality through syndication, baby. Immortality through reruns, photo spreads, and whatever you’ve got bottled up inside that never ages but always festers.

The film drips with analog surrealism—flickering VHS afterimages, synth scores that sound like Jan Hammer having an existential crisis, and soft lighting that turns every room into a memory. The photo (replacing the painting) doesn’t just age—it accumulates sins like cigarette burns in a velvet couch. And when Dorian looks at it, she sees not just time passing, but souls she's consumed.

It’s camp, noir, tragedy, and perfume-ad terror, dressed in shoulder pads and moral decay. Sure, the pacing’s TV-movie slow, and the budget screams prime time instead of prime cinema—but that just adds to its charm. Like watching Faust after a Donahue marathon.

Final Verdict:
“Sins of Dorian Gray” is where Wildean wit meets Reagan-era rot. It’s a cautionary tale in eyeliner and chiffon, told through static and seduction. Watch it at midnight, preferably through a haze of microwaved popcorn and unresolved guilt.”

– Buzz Drainpipe, CREASE Magazine (1983 Retrospective Reprint)