My review was written in June 1987 after watching the movie on Magnum video cassette.
"Ladies of the Lotus" is an oddball exploitation film that suffers from the pernicious influence of music videos. Shot on film but with post production done on video it is in any case too boring for theatrical use.
Confusing and slapdash storyline concerns warring gangsters in the Vancouver area. Lotus Inc. Is involved in drugs and white slavery, while rival things are mowing down the Lotus personnel and fashioning scams of their own involving a modeling studio run by Lotus villainesses Angela Read and Darcia Carnie.
Lead player Richard Dale begins as a cliched character, a muscle building nut who installs a secret camera that photographs the models in their dressing room; then he stalks them and kills them. He goes through this routine with Carnie and then unbelievably turns into her instant savior when the gangsters also try to kill her. Most of the loose ends in the final reel are settled rather simply by gunfire.
Tiresome film is just an excuse to show pretty models in lingerie ast every opportunity. Cast is either watching music videos or day-dreaming in the form of music videos; action scenes are poorly executed.
As undertone of light bondage links the film to co-director Lloyd Simandl's previous effort, the 1979 picture "Autumn Born" starring the late Dorothy Stratten, a softcore bondage opus that was unflatteringly represented in Bob Fosse's "Star 80".
