Nostalgia Kinky

Troma continues its run of re-releasing titles Vinegar Syndrome borrowed back in the day for HD releases that are now out of print. This newest Tromatic Special Edition is for Sugar Cookies, the eerie and erotic mystery from director Theodore Gershuny. Utilizing the same VS restoration, along with a combined set of extras from their release and Troma’s original DVD, this new Blu-ray of Sugar Cookies is an extremely affordable new edition of this sometimes hard-to-acquire title.

First off, I’m so happy to say that I finally love Sugar Cookies! Let me explain. I first saw this weird Lloyd Kaufman-scripted joint years ago on VHS in my twenties, and it left me surprisingly cold. There was just something about it that kept me at a distance. Years later I caught up with Troma’s Blu-ray edition, and I still felt the same hesitation about the film, despite my love for the cast and genre. I never saw the original Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray, and now, after seeing this new Troma edition, I realize much of my hesitation about the film was down to simple print quality. Finally seeing a restored version of the film has opened my eyes to its great qualities and beauty.

One of the main reasons I always wanted to get down with Sugar Cookies is because of how much I love this period in East Coast filmmaking and the people involved. I mean Sugar Cookies has Jennifer Welles and Ondine in it! This is a glorious crossover between the downtown Warhol scene and the blossoming Golden Age of adult films. Sugar Cookies is a softcore work, but it is sharing the bakery shelf with the period’s harder films.

Originally from Chicago, writer/director Theodore Gershuny ended up in New York in the sixties with a film career in mind. His life was changed upon meeting Warhol Superstar Mary Woronov, and the two soon became husband and wife. After shooting some shorts in the sixties, Gershuny made his feature-length debut with Kemek, a 1970 film starring Woronov and a few other Sugar Cookies figures, including Alexandra Stewart.

Kemek landed with a dud, but Gershuny stumbled onto a minor cult hit with his second feature, Silent Night, Bloody Night (1972). Again starring Woronov, this chilly winter chiller is a winner, and for a moment it felt like Gershuny, along with Woronov, might break through. Whatever that means but the two did seem like a substantial mainstream career might be in their future.
Then they made Sugar Cookies.

Written by Kaufman and Gershuny, Sugar Cookies is a bizarre little film. A takeoff on Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), with a young Lynn Lowry taking on the complicated Kim Novak dual role, Sugar Cookies is at its best erotic, sinister, and violent. There are stabs at humor in the film that just don’t work, especially 50-plus years later, but for the most part Sugar Cookies is a hotly mesmerizing film featuring some bravely captivating performances and lovely photography.

Considering the inexperience of most of the film’s cast and crew, including a young Oliver Stone acting as producer, Sugar Cookies is a genuinely impressive picture. Engaging, subtle and surprising, Sugar Cookies fits in nicely with the great melodramatic NYC adult film tradition, but there is something distinctly odd about the production that makes it especially interesting. Much of it is down to the Warhol connection and the film’s stage-like qualities.

Featuring a good-sized ensemble cast, Sugar Cookies is still controlled by the powerful duo of Lowry and Woronov. After nearly a decade in Warhol’s orbit, the obviously talented Woronov was securing more and more mainstream roles in the period that Sugar Cookies came out. She’s great here, frequently naked and sometimes menacing as a woman bent on enacting revenge for her dead lover. In the wake of Sugar Cookies’ failure, Woronov morphed into a AIP/New World Corman era star before eventually settling into a wildly diverse seven-decade film career.

The real star of Sugar Cookies is 25-year-old Lynn Lowry, seen here in one of the earliest roles of her career. Constantly nude onscreen in Sugar Cookies, Lowry gives courageous and surprisingly nuanced performance(s) that control the film. Lowry is truly fantastic here. It is a shame that Sugar Cookies didn’t do better at the time, as Lowry’s cult film career might have been even more substantial had this film hit.

But Sugar Cookies didn’t hit. In fact, it crumbled upon release, with Kaufman frequently joking over the years that it is the only X-rated film to ever lose money. Regardless of the lack of attention it received at the time, Sugar Cookies is a fine, if not perfect film from one of cinema’s most important and undervalued movements.

Troma’s new Blu-ray ports over most of, if not all, Vinegar Syndrome’s supplements, including lengthy interviews with Kaufman and Lowry. The 2014 35mm camera negative restoration looks mostly fine. While a new 4K scan would be most welcome at some point, this very well might be the best we ever see Sugar Cookies looking or sounding.

The original Troma extras are also all here, including cast and crew interviews as well as a funny attempt at an Oliver Stone interview. I continue to be baffled by some of Troma’s menu design decisions, but otherwise this is a nice, no-frills standard Blu-ray special edition of a really fine film from a lost time. Available for pre-order from MVD for less than a footlong Subway sandwich and sugar cookie, this edition of Sugar Cookies is an absolute no-brainer for anyone who doesn’t already own an HD copy of this sexy and strange film. Highly Recommended.

-Jeremy Richey, July 2026-