It is no big secret that tastes tend to change over time, and this can be clearly seen in our attitude towards sex and nudity in film. It was almost commonplace during the sexual liberation of the 70s and 80s, but the advent of AIDS as the consequence of all that free love took most of the fun out of it. The erotic thriller had its heyday in the 90s, but it showed the dangers of sex, not a celebration of physical love. Sex had to become functional or it had to go, so it was gradually phased out of mainstream cinema during the 00s. Those who lamented this were told to go to the internet, where the hardcore underground segment had won a lot of terrain during the 90s.
Fortunately, there are different mediums for different tastes, and there were networks that understood that not every lover of erotic arts needs to see everything in every anatomical and liquid detail. You could say that the 00s were a fertile ground for a lot of soft- and midcore erotic TV films and series, like Red Shoe Diaries and Bedtime Stories. And we can thank John Quinn for his devotion to keep the flame burning all throughout the 00s with projects like Lingerie and Sin City Diaries, although his most famous one may be Passion Cove.
The constant in this erotic anthology series is the titular resort that serves as the location for each episode, where it is rented out by Samantha (Caroline Ambrose) to different groups of people come to seek rest, recreation or refuge, but they always end up finding love, passion and more. The resort with its surrounding beach and swimming pool never fails to magically ignite the fires
of carnal passion in its guests, which is a pretty subtle plot device if you consider that most of the stuff in this genre isn't known for its great writing or logical motivation of why people would suddenly engage in sex. Make no mistake, this series still caters generously to lovers of nude bodies and sex for the sake of sex, so don't expect price-winning dialogues or screenplays here, but there is satisfaction in that it gives its audience what it wants without artistic pretentions or the many clichés of hardcore erotica.
It is pleasant to know that fulfilling our basic needs for sexuality doesn't have to be entirely without nice production values. Passion Cove has plenty of good going for it. The varying casts always look attractive, and there are some gorgeous actresses from an era where not everyone was surgically enhanced, and hair in certain places was stil acceptable. Those familiar with the erotic movies from Indigo Entertainment will recognize quite a few famous faces (and other body parts), like Lauren Hays, Monique Parent, Gabriella Hall and Kira Reed. The acting and dialogue, apart from body language, is never the big attraction in such series, but it is good to know that some actors do a pretty decent job. The stories are quite diverse; as expected they never go really deep, but they serve as decent scaffolds for the real action without unnecessarily dumbing things down (no repair men or pizza delivery men ending up in bed with the lady of the house here). The choreography, lighting, photography, editing as well as the music of the sex scenes are all beautifully done, making great use of the exotic locations, bodies and sexual variations, and often going as explicit as the format allows.
This series truly celebrates the joy of sex in a good way and form, so it is almost a shame that they hardly make 'em like this anymore. The success of the 50 Shades books and films may indicate that a revival is never impossible, and that we may enjoy a healthy bit of sexuality in mainstream movies in the future.
