Beast

Trust the lugubrious mind meld of director Michael Raven and writer David Aaron Clark, who have both taken the currently hot Gothic chic to the very depths of darkness and despair in their respective work, to come up with an update of the timeless tale of Beauty and the Beast with the emphasis as the title suggests definitely on the latter. In past porn renditions, Warren Evans called his 1981 version BEAUTY with Loni Sanders in the title role and perpetual bad boy Jamie Gillis more ill-mannered teddy bear than outright monstrosity while Paul Thomas combined imagery taken ad verbatim from Jean Cocteau's art-house classic with the atmosphere of a Christmas pantomime in his BEAUTY AND THE BEAST 1 & 2. Always at his best with macabre material (as UNDERWORLD and WATCHERS attest), Raven simply takes the fairytale as his cue for another tour through Ravenville, a sort of depraved Gotham City where moans of pleasure and cries of anguish are virtually impossible to tell apart, where night never seems to turn into day.

This version's Beast is a wealthy disfigured recluse played to absolute perfection by Anthony Crane delivering as fine a thespian turn as one is ever likely to encounter in an adult film. Crane is totally obsessed with a mysterious dominatrix who goes by the name of Beauty (Jessica Drake) who turns out to harbor extreme insecurities of her own, as pointed out by her live-in female lover Ava Vincent (formerly Jewel Valmont) who begrudgingly accepts but does not approve of her girlfriend's nocturnal activities. Utterly submitting himself to Drake's every whim, Crane comes to see himself erroneously as both benefactor and ultimate savior of his wayward Mistress, disregarding the fact that she wants nor needs this kind of redemption.

I have had my misgivings in the past about many people's apparently over-abundant admiration for Michael Raven who too often seemed to favor style over substance with the by now customary rock video aesthetic of upmarket porn. Not so with BEAST, one of the most devastating dirty movies in recent memory which offers no escape route out of its exceptionally downbeat view of life and love in the budding new millennium. Characters are either well-meaning if clueless (Beast, Beauty's lover) or unabashedly self-serving (Beauty, her vicious pimp portrayed indelibly by director Robby D. as well as most everybody else here) and experience does nothing to change them unless it's for the worse. The blazing ending (which I'm not about to reveal here) destroys every single bit of hope any of the characters may have had to begin with but it makes perfect sense as a six feet under conclusion to a tale that was considerably less than cheerful at the outset. To put it bluntly, Raven will tear many an unsuspecting viewer a new rectum with this baby. But he does so with immaculate style and cinematic finesse, composing artful images with the help of ace cinematographer Jack Remy that'll etch themselves in your mind's eye. Some of the things you see and hear will undoubtedly shock you (even this jaded old porn hound flinched on a couple of occasions), some will certainly turn you on though you may hesitate to admit to it. The sex is raw and brutal but consensual (with a single romantic fantasy sequence near film's end providing perfect contrast), punctuated by a largely heavy metal soundtrack, not my personal music of choice yet perfectly suited to Raven's ends.

While Raven hits an all time high stylistically, none of this darker than thou stuff would work if it weren't for the sheer excellence of the performances. Though pretty enough, Jessica Drake never registered very strongly with me in past efforts. She may not be the most accomplished actress ever to hit even blue movies but somehow she is casting perfection as the cold-hearted but extremely alluring dominatrix, a figure further shrouded in mystery through Raven's elliptic storytelling methods jumping backward and forward in time.

I liked this porno movie. Or more accurately, I liked the sex scenes in this porno movie. I was kind of surprised that I liked the sex scenes as much as I did, because this looked like it could be a terrible movie. It looked like it could be one of those weird fetish porno movies with crazy outfits, that is shot in some really stylish way which totally ruins every scene. Well, thank god that wasn't the case.

I must say that the scenes were shot with some good angles and I really liked the fact that they didn't show too many close ups. The lesbian scene could have used more lighting and the last scene had some shots with too bright lights, but other than that there wasn't much technical misses. All the girls that perform in this movie are also very hot, especially Jessica Drake and Miko Lee. One thing that bothered me was that pretty much every scene felt a little short. But that is a sign that the scene was really enjoyable.

Out of the scenes in this movie, the one with Maya Divine was absolutely the weakest. Maya is a good performer and I've seen a few good scenes with her, but here they have covered up her beautiful body, or should I say tits, with some kind of dress. The scene was still watchable, but could have been better. The other scene that I had a problem with was the one with April Flowers. Once again this girl is in a condom scene. I recently watched the movie "Wild Pair" were she was "fucking" Lee Stone with a condom. Well here she "fucks" him again with a condom. I don't know what it is, because I've seen this chick do guys without a condom, so it can't be that. And Lee Stone bangs chicks many times without a condom, so I just don't get it. Well, at least the director does a good job with the camera and mostly shoots it from a distance, so that way the condom doesn't show as clearly. On the plus side I must say that I once again enjoyed April's oral skills. It's not every girl that can deep throat a dick like that. Most women would have a lot to learn from this chick. The "fucking" was also quite good in this scene. Too bad that the guy watching didn't join in, because I would have really enjoyed to see this girl get DP:ed.

This movie stars the beautiful and sexy Jessica Drake. And this was shot back when Jessica was in her prime. Although we get to see Jessica in hot action in two scenes, I felt a little disappointed. Both scenes were good scenes but as I said before they were really short. I feel like Jessica didn't get to shine as much as she should have. In the first scene Jessica has sex with Ava Vincent (Jewel Valmont). Ava mostly gives spectacular performances in lesbian scenes and this is no exception. It seems like this girl enjoys pussy more than cock. The problem with this scene is that it doesn't show much of Jessica's hot body. The scene mostly shows Ava and her body. The reason for that is that the scene only has Jessica pleasuring Ava, but never Ava pleasuring Jessica. The scene starts with Jessica giving Ava a licking and then show her with a "strap on", which Ava sucks before Jessica "fucks" her with it. The other scene with Jessica has her once again "fucking" her real life partner back then, Evan Stone. This scene is a good one despite the fact that it doesn't show Jessica sucking cock until after the cumshot when she cleans it up. I really liked the shots of Jessica riding Evan Stone's big cock in the cowgirl position. They show us some nice shots from the front, instead of the back. I've always preferred the shot from the front because that's when you see the girls body and facial expressions at the same time. It's a real shame that this is a angle seldom used in hardcore porno movies. Another treat with this scene was that it shows Jessica taking Evan's big cock up her tight ass. I haven't seen this girl in too many scenes were she takes it up her ass. I've not seen her newer movies but at least in the old ones it's not something she does on a daily bases. Jessica's ass looks really tight and Evan is really gentle with it. But at the end he sticks it a little rougher in her ass and Jessica really seems to enjoy it.

The biggest surprise with this movie however, was how Miko Lee totally stole the show. This girl was in two scenes and both scenes were good, especially the first one. In the first one she's dressed up as a catholic schoolgirl who totally dominates the guy she's having sex with. I really like her nasty insults and dirty talk throughout the scene. There really isn't much scenes like this in mainstream porn were the girl totally dominates the guy and has her way with him, and that's really sad, because I really enjoy them. Miko had great energy in the scene and I really liked her in the cowgirl position as well. In the second scene she has sex with a guy in a dirty bathroom with Jessica in charge of the show. Here she plays a more submissive role and she nails it once again. It was great to see Miko in the reverse cowgirl position in this scene. It really gave Miko a chance to once again show off her spectacular body. I've not seen many scenes with Miko, but the ones I've seen I've really enjoyed. I must say that she's one of my top 5 Asian porn stars and probably one of the most underrated porn stars of all time.