Forgive me... I'm about to commit a cardinal sin and give a negative review to a Greg Dark movie... I am sorry... Truly sorry...

"Sex Freaks" (1996)

Prod/Dir : Greg Dark

Wr : William Grey (Greg Dark?)

Stars : Lovette, Rip Hymen, Paisley Hunter, Stephanie Swift, Caressa Savage, Kim Kitaine, Missy, Toni, Lennox, Nyrobi Knights, Nici Sterling, Sharon Kane, Alex Sanders, Tom Byron, Marc Wallice, Leslie Forbes, Dave Cummings and about 10 - 20 other guys in costume. (You know you're getting old when you hardly recognize any of the female cast...)

EVIL ANGEL/DARK WORKS
(SHOT ON FILM!!! YIPEE!!)

[Forgive me if this review sounds confusing. I have no idea what was going on in the movie aside from the sex, so I'm just giving *my* own interpretation of what I think I saw... That should give you an idea of what I think of it as well...]

I have to say it... I'm disappointed. Dark has taken a major stumble with this one. Just as I thought he was going from strength to strength with movies like "New Wave Hookers 4" and the mind-boggling "Inferno" last year, he comes out with this. I had hoped that his switching from long time partners VCA to Evil Angel would have resulted in a change for the best, being as EA gave him complete artistic freedom and free reign over what he shot. I guess this sent him batty and with "Sex Freaks" he's gone way over the top.

Sure, the sex is hot. Mostly. I'll admit that. Not nearly as hot as what I've seen in the past from Dark, but fairly hot. What *IS* lacking here is the innovation, the originality, the humour that is usually so rich in Dark's movies. He seems to be heading down the same track that Russ Meyer did in his later movies (ie recycling old material, ad nauseam). In fact, one could almost percieve "Sex Freaks" as being a *PARODY* of Dark! But not only does he rip off himself here, but he also shamelessly "borrows" ideas from other directors such as Rinse Dream and even the Pope of Trash himself John Waters! Has he finally ran out of ideas or something? I mean after giving us 10 years of magnificent, imaginative and truly unique porn, it's inevitable that one day he's just gonna run out of things to say but... I guess it's one of those things that you never want to let happen. Anyway, on with the review.

As usual, Rip Hymen steals the show, acting wise. He plays a man who wears Zebra Skin suits called "Julio Midnight". Midnight is the central character in the film. We open on a really seedy looking street (like something out of an early Dark film) outside a junkyard. Two young girls (Stephanie Swift and Nyrobi Knights) are sitting on a bench. Julio is standing across the road with a suitcase full of dolls. With a wave of his hand the dolls turn into mini-replicas of Knights and Swift. Giggling as he does it, Julio makes the two dolls kiss each other and sure enough the two girls on the bench start kissing too. Suddenly, music stops, Julio gasps and looks round... A man in a garishly colored clown suit (Tom Byron) is bounding along the street! Julio quickly magics up another doll in the shape of the clown and suddenly all four of them are transported to a really weird looking set with big signs everywhere that read things like "DARK WORLD" and "WHERE IS YOUR MESSIAH NOW?!!!" I guess that this is an unwanted peek into the warped psychological profile of Greg Dark. I don't really want to think about it too much or I might get worried...

Anyhow, Swift tells us in voice-over that she is an uptight, humorless and feminist attorney who is bored with her life. Knights explains that she's a cheap escort girl who hates herself for what she does and well Byron just says something like "You've gotta laugh" because he's a clown (???). Before too long they start fucking, but I think that you'd already guessed that, right? Well, to be fair this is a really good scene. I was very impressed with it as an opener. Stephanie Swift is absolutely gorgeous, it has to be said. I had not seen her prior to this movie, but am already anxious to see her again. In case you haven't seen her, she's a pale brunette who (in the right light) is the spitting image of Wynona Ryder (sort of) with a killer body and nice natural breasts. Nyrobi Knights is not quite so nice. She's black with very big hair and an okay body. She could be okay elsewhere but alongside Stephanie she just slips into the background. Anyways, it starts off with Byron the Clown screwing Stephanie in the usual oral/oral/mish/ doggie fashion, but the camera captures some really lovely full body shots and she seems quite "into it". During this part, Nyrobi stands around in the background masturbating. It ends with a peculiar cumshot. Byron cums inside the condom that he's been wearing (the only one in the film, thankfully) and tips the remainder over Stephanie's face. My guess is that it was faked. This guess is backed up by the fact that as soon as he's tipped out the fluid he just starts screwing Nyrobi as if nothing happened. Same positions as before apply for this bit although Nyrobi manages to take it up the ass from the doggie position. To finish off the scene, Tom pops a truly weak load on her butt and we cut to Julio...

He begins to explain to his "audience" (comprised of Leslie Forbes, the midget in NWH4, and some fat woman) that he runs a theatre of sorts, called the "CAVALCADE OF PERVERSION" (NOTE : This name is stolen from John Waters' sleaze classic "Multiple Maniacs" (1969) where Divine owned a travelling carnival with the same name). This theatre is a place where he brings degenerates off the street (as we've just seen) and lets them fuck their way to a better life or something. In a nutshell, he REgenerates the DEgenerates into normal society. Forgive me if this is not how Dark intended me to interpret it but it's hardly explained very well. Julio is controlled by a big pair of lips on a TV Screen (supposedly belonging to Sharon Kane) who tells him who he should regenerate. The next assignment is "The Art Girl", played by another newcummer (to me anyways), Paisley Hunter, dressed in stupid clothes that you would see on a beatnik in an issue of MAD magazine. We get a few minutes of excellently delivered, but thoroughly pretencious (sp?) monologue from Julio, whilst Paisley stands there doing some kind of silly robot dance that looks like something out of "Cafe' Flesh". Eventually two guys in (I don't believe I'm typing this) Insect Suits come crawling out of the woodwork so naturally, Paisley decides to fuck them.

Someone should take this girl to the doctor as she's developed a very serious case of PRIVATE-itis, the disease which causes otherwise quite talented young porn stars to gaze vacuously into the camera and totally ignore the matters closer to hand. Throughout this entire scene, she just stares endlessly into the camera. Just an occasional glance here and there can be okay. It can even be erotic in the right context, but just constantly looking into it is stupid! It makes it obvious that she's totally uninterested in the dicks that she's sucking/fucking. Well, aside from that it's not *such* a bad scene. First we get some fairly well done double oral penetration. Then, she has Bug#1 fuck her missionary style for a bit whilst she sucks off Bug#2. Not too long afterwards Bug#1 flips her over for some doggie-style screwing before they eventually decide to DP her. Usually Dark's DP's are the best around. The camera angles are perfect, the girl seems into it, he keeps the guys out of the way but this is dull as dishwater. She's totally out of it and keeps her eye on the camera throughout the ENTIRE FUCKING THING (!!!). It's pretty hard to keep the guys out of the picture when they've got three foot insect wings taped to their backs. It went on for too long as well. I just hit FF>> which is something I *VERY* rarely do in a Dark film. The cumshots are becoming ridiculous BTW, Mr Dark. At the end of this scene the two guys blast off into a jam jar containing a barbie doll. For fuck's sake, Greg, this is stupid. You might think you're being arty but let's face facts here, no one is going to get off on it which is the reason why we're all here anyway...

Cut back to Julio's office now, where he's eating a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Enter "Lucy Juicy", an ex-porn star, sex obsessed feminist or some such ridiculous oxymoron, played by Lennox, a reasonably attractive Ariana lookalike with horrific hair extensions, a couple of labia rings (eck!) and (I think) fake tits. She has heard of Julio's fantastic theatre and wants to stage her new play there. Of course he says yes and we cut to the theatre where Lennox is standing in a pit of (fake) fire surrounded by four or five guys in red devil outfits. She's overacting something rotten and screaming out stuff like "I am the slut supreme" or some such absolutely stupid nonsense and before too long the Devils gangbang her. What a surprise...

Dark's been using the "Red Devil" motif since he first began, pretty much. We had Traci Lords do it in the original "New Wave Hookers" if you remember that far back, then recently Rip Hymen and Leslie Forbes both donned the crimson capes in "Inferno" and now we have another five guys or so doing it here. Recycled Dark... Anyhow, they all start rimming Lennox and then fingering her. Whilst this is going on, Julio hallucinates or something about Paisley Hunter and then some ghostly figure in bandages pops out from behind a tombstone. I guess this is religious symbolism for Lazarus rising from his grave? Come off it, Greg. What's going on? I agree now with Jeff's theory that Dark has most definately lost his sense of humour. I thought "Inferno" was a hoot, despite what Jeff said, but with "Sex Freaks" I see that Dark really is going for the Death Metal approach. I didn't laugh once throughout this whole movie... I still can't watch the original NWH and not laugh at at least one line, even though I know most of the dialogue by heart... Anyways, I digress. The Lazarus figure turns out to be Paisley and before too long, she and Lennox are sucking cock like it's going out of fashion. This soon degenerates into a gangbang with one cock in each girl's mouth and one of the other "devils" penetrating their pussies either doggie style or missionary. I hit FF>> after awhile because it seemed to be just one guy after another plunging it in, over and over again... yawn. There's a fairly nice Reverse Cowgirl on Lennox at one point and it heats up a bit when Lennox gets it anally. She goes absolutely crazy. I like her enthusiasm a lot. Paisley also gets it up the ass, but doesn't seem so excited about it. In fact, Paisley doesn't seem excited about much. She may be fairly attractive but she seems totally detatched from the action in both of her scenes. Maybe this is just my opinion as I recall Milton Brewster giving her an adoring review not too long ago, so it could just be in this movie... Anyway, the scene ends with a couple of guys shooting off in there hands (why?) and the other two just firing into oblivion. Why on earth do you bother having a cumshot if it's not going anywhere? What is the point? I mean, I'm not someone who demands that every scene ends with a facial. That would be boring. But if you're going have some guys shooting off, you want to try and do something erotic with it. Otherwise, just fade out sans cumshot I say. It's a waste just having them blast off into empty space...

Next, just to please the ethnic audience (NOT!), we have Julio pay a gratuitous visit to a water-melon chompin' black man called Sucker T. Washington. I have no idea why Julio pays him a visit, I have no idea why Dark thought it would be clever to have him chewing on a giant water melon and, no, I don't have any idea what the ensuing conversation between the two characters is about. Julio walks off in the end, after having a rant at Sucker T and then the "lips" on the TV have a go at Sucker as well, forcing him to do a quick chicken impression? What? Cut now to a chinese restaurant where the head waitress, "Sweet Meat" (played by Lovette, who wears a jacket with the words SWEET MEAT imprinted in big letters, and actually doesn't look as bad as I was expecting her to, having seen some stills), whom Julio is very attracted to, is serving up something to a group of delicious female customers. Sitting in a row at the back of the restaurant are five guys in slanty-eyed "Chinaman" glasses with long moustaches. Is Dark purposely trying to offend all ethnic minorities or is it just me? Anyway, these guys jerk off and the gals engage in a really sizzling g/g/g/g scene which is by far the high point of the movie.

By a mile, the award for down right scrumptiousness in this scene goes to the truly lovely Caressa Savage. She is absolutely delicious. It has to be said. I hadn't seen her up until now but I want to see her again as much as possible! She also happens to perform as well as she looks and gives a Hell of a lot of enthusiasm to the scene. Also involved are Missy and Toni another couple of newcummers, neither of whom fall into the "chopped liver" category. Missy is an attractively built blonde girl with nice, fairly small, breasts and Toni is a brunette with small breasts and a labia piercing (ick). The girls play around on a leather table for some time, making full usage of fingers, tongues and several dildoes of varying size. The best part of the scene is when Caressa sits on Missy's face and gives us a cracking view of her absolutely knockout body. The gals do get quite nasty in parts and Lovette does a heckuva lot o' spittin' into various orifices. I can't really go into who does what/who does who precisely or I'll be here all day, but basically the girls swap positions every few seconds, all get really enthusiastic about it and everybody gets a lick at everybody else. The scene ends with all the girls trying to cram fingers into Missy's box and the chinamen spending about a minute just cumming into mid-air... Now I have to object to this part. I loved the g/g/g/g scene and there was NO NEED AT ALL to spoil it with a minute's worth of solid guy-cumming footage. Now, if he'd had the guys jerking off and then at the last minute (following the completion of the g/g/g/g) walking over and dropping monster loads onto the girlie's faces, then I could have seen the point of having them present but if I want to watch a series of guys whacking off into mid-air I'll go buy a gay JO video or something. There's no point in having it here and there's certainly no need for the racially stereotyping costumes either...

After the gals finish, Julio tries to get Sweet Meat to come home with him but she refuses. Also, Julio's voodoo dolls don't work with her for some reason. Thus he returns to his office, pissed as Hell, and demands an answer from "Lips" as to why he can't have a Sweet Meat doll. She says he's behaving like a baby and WHAM! before you can say "What the fuck have you been taking, I'll have twelve please" he's transported to some weird setting, shoved in a hi-chair and wearing a diaper and baby bonnet! Oh yeah, Dave Cummings is sitting next to him in the same attire... He must be short of work this month or something. Now, on come Kim Kitaine, Nici Sterling and Alex Sanders dressed in bondage schtick (PVC, chains, etc). Alex orders Kim around and when she doesn't obey he spanks her a few times. Then the three of them fuck whilst Dave and Julio watch from the hi-chairs. (NOTE : The idea of people fucking whilst big babies watch them has been done before in "Cafe' Flesh")

We start with some anal rimming of all three partners and then move on to the usual cock-sucking/oral antics. Kim is a very attractive gal, BTW, with very nice sky blue eyes that reminded me of Ginger Lynn. Dunno if anyone else noticed (or cared for) this? Anyhow, Nici gets fucked in both orifices from Alex in the two standard positions (doggie/mish). Not being a subscriber to the current trend at asm/rame about Nici Sterling being some kind of Godsent gift to the porn world, I just hit FF>> She didn't look too good, IMHO, and her performance was fairly lacklustre as far as I was concerned. Kim did a little better as she got the same treatment, but I think that was just because she looked so darned cute when she flashed those pretty little blue eyes at the camera. Hmmmm.... Very nice... Sorry, lost it for a second there. Well, at least this one has a cumshot. Alex pulls it out of Kim's ass and I think cums inside her open asshole. However, Dark commits a cardinal sin here and shoots it from a sideways view, thus we don't see any dilation! I could picture some other jerk like Ninn, Blake, Grant, etc, etc, missing out on a good tunnel shot by shooting it from the side but Dark? God... Anyway, after the badly shot cumshot, he thrusts back in there and plunges away again for a few seconds before we cut away quickly to the next bit.

Julio brings Sweet Meat back to his office and tells her how he feels and that he'll go to any length to have her. This puts her in control. This means she can do anything to him... So what does she do? She makes him dress up like Al Jolson and sing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"! I ain't making this shit up, folks! Hell, I couldn't even if I tried! This is getting stupid, doncha think? Anyhow, he finishes off this touching rendition of the classic just as she walks through the door accompanied by some really wimpy looking fuck with a big dog in his hands and a Hare Krishna style haircut. She hands the dog over to Julio and then fucks the wimp on the couch.

This is the only straightforward b/g scene in the whole film, BTW, and that's not something to be proud of. It's a bit crap as well. They just go through the motions. He licks her, she gives lousy head, she rims his asshole (is this becoming a trend in porn? I've seen it so much recently and I can't stand it), they do it doggie style and then missionary style. The interesting thing here is the fact that throughout the whole scene, Lovette is eating food. Now, perhaps food fetishists might enjoy that so I do see why Dark put it in, but I can tell that her parents never taught her that it's rude (and gross) to eat with your mouth open. She chews on a French baguette for awhile and then opens her mouth letting us see all the half chewed bread inside... Not too pleasant. Anyway, it ends with him cumming on the apple she's been chewing and her eating it of course. Still, she must be pretty bored if she can afford to be chewing an apple during sex...

Once the scene is over, Julio asks if he can fuck her now and she tells him to get stuffed. She also lays down the rules of what she will and won't do. These include the fact that she'll never get fucked in the ass (having just returned from a world tour with Max Steiner prior to making this movie I find this hard to swallow) and she'll never *EVER* fuck Julio Midnight... He's really mad now and demands that "Lips" supplies him with a Sweet Meat doll. After a lot of screaming, crying and MTV-editing he finally gets one. Cut to the "Cavalcade of perversion" where he's standing on stage doing some MC-ing which really did bring Andrew Nichols in "Cafe' Flesh" to mind, once again displaying Dark's skill in ripping off other people for this movie. Anyway, Julio introduces Sweet Meat and from out of the darkness come five guys in skeleton suits to gangbang her! (I guess this gives new meaning to "popping a boner"?)

Admittedly, this has a neat artistic effect but is certainly neither erotic nor funny. The sex itself here is tepid to say the least as well. There's a lot of the standard blowjob work so dear to the gangbang genre and before too long she's getting DP'd by two of the Bone Brigade. As the scene goes on it rapidly loses heat, as it descends to merely a series of one guy after the other plunging into her pussy from the missionary position and (shortly afterwards) a bunch of guys doing the same with her ass. She actually looks okay, aside from the saladbowl tit job (which to be fair, I've seen worse), and she performs quite nicely as well. It's the guys that don't seem to know how to handle it, which is surprising, being as I'm sure I saw some old pro's like Marc Wallice in amongst the bones... I dunno.. Anyway, it ends with three of the guys mustering weak oral cumshots and the other two going home early and not even bothering with that. Christ Almighty, put some effort into it Greg...

The film ends strangely with Julio going out of his mind or something and spontaenously combusting. To finish off, we zoom out to reveal that Leslie Forbes and the fat chick from earlier have been watching this whole thing on TV as "Lips" tells us that we've been watching the "regeneration" of Julio Midnight. It kind of makes sense if you're pushing it, I guess.. Well, maybe not...

Well, what can I say? This is the first time I've ever given a bad review to my favorite porno director of all time, Greg Dark. I just can't help it. I feel cheated by this movie. The script is just way over the top with the weirdness. It's not coherantly weird, that's the problem. It's just nonsense. I mean what was all that shit with the black guy and the water melons? He appears once, talks shit and vanishes! Why? Why? Why? Where is the plot? The whole movie is just childish, thorougly self-indulgent and bordering on pretensious (sp?) from an artistic viewpoint. But hey, that's not why we're here right? We're here for some fucking... well even that's not to Dark's usual skyrocketing standards. The opener with the lovely Stephanie Swift is nice and the g/g/g/g is fantastic. I think I'm in love with Caressa Savage (well, not *really* but you know what I mean)! However, the rest of it is fairly dull and the whole silly costumes thing has gone beyond a joke. I used to think it was funny but now it just seems tired... It's like Russ Meyer, as I said before. "Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" and "Beyond the Valley of Dolls" are both Grade-A movies whereas "Up!" and "Beneath the valley of the Ultravixens" are just repetetive, boring and self-indulgent pieces o' shit. That's the same way that Dark's going with stuff like this. I'm going to have to seek out his new one "Flesh", just to see if he can redeem himself. If not, I'm going to be very disappointed indeed. It's always sad to see one of the greats fall (The last time I saw it was when Alex DeRenzy metamorphosized into Rex Borsky.... weep..) and I hope that Dark isn't going to... With all this rambling in mind I give it 2.75 on the Imperial Scale. That's higher than I'd give to most new movies, because as I said there are two really hot scenes in it and the technical quality/production values are top notch. It's just a lot less than I'd give to a Greg Dark movie usually...

Happy viewing!

(Holding his breath until he finds a copy of "Flesh"...)