MOVIE REVIEW : LIKABLE ‘LOVER’ HAS HUMOR, PANACHE

“My Demon Lover” (which started citywide last Friday) is a cautionary horror-romantic comedy about smart women and foolish choices--and though there’s a lot wrong with it, there are things amusingly right about it, too. Director Charlie Loventhal, writer Leslie Ray and their cast keep skirting taste’s thin ice; sometimes they crash down, sometimes they stay sprightly and upright.

In “Lover,” the heroine (Michelle Little)--a cockeyed optimist with a taste for stray dogs and bad men--stumbles on a masochist’s dream: a stringy-haired street bum named Kaz (Scott Valentine of “Family Ties”). On first meeting, he begs a sandwich and then upchucks it on her.

Wait . . . things get worse. Her new heartthrob has been saddled since puberty with a Rumanian curse--which hits during sexual arousal, turning him into a red-eyed monster--and this makes him prime suspect in some local serial murders, whose perpetrator apparently has horns, a tail and long claws.

Tell a plot like that to someone, and they’re liable to leave quickly, without further comment--especially if they find out that our couple begins romping through parks and living together, platonically, and that a persistent barhopping nerd (Robert Trebor) and a street-wise, clairvoyant peddler (Arnold Johnson) are involved, along with a lot of sub-”Ghostbusters” special effects.

So, what’s good about it? First: Writer Ray, who also appears briefly as “the leggy redhead,” has a really quirky sense of humor. At one point, when Kaz does his monster transmigration before his lover’s horrified eyes, he becomes, in rapid succession, a wizened, devilish troll whose head blows off, a babbling boorish guest who won’t leave, and, finally, a haranguing, aproned, kvetching mother.

For another, director Loventhal has a smooth touch with the actors, a good sense of where the story and jokes are--and a tangy knack for Manhattan after hours.

All the actors are good, in a bubbly sitcom style, and Valentine and Little are an especially charming couple. Valentine gives his East Village Jekyll-Hyde part engaging athleticism and bounce; his panache never falters even when bat-wings erupt from his shoulders. Michelle Little is unqualifiedly adorable: a killer ingenue who, in classic fashion, makes you want to reach out and protect her. (For feminist balance, the movie offers her girlfriend, played by Gina Gallego, as a mean-streets macha type who probably could reach out and protect you.)

All that said, it must be added that there are extremely silly things about “My Demon Lover,” and some will find it overcute and shallow. But, on a gut Saturday-matinee level, “My Demon Lover” (rated PG-13) works in ways that many of the ubiquitous big-studio comedy lollapaloozas out now simply don’t. At its best, it’s a fast, funny, demoniacally likable show.