Katsumi's Dirty Deeds

John Stagliano's Evil Angel has issued thousands of gonzo, all-sex videos over the decades, but I was mightily impressed at this exception to his rule - a genuine feature loaded with gonzo content. It proves that building in characteriztion and at least a semblance of a story context makes all the difference between the ephemeral (a video with a shelf half-life of perhaps a month) and something worth returning to years (in this case 13) later.

It is quite similar to a far better Sin City classic released a year later, "Hannah Goes to Hell", starring Hannah Harper in a riveting tale that is both dramatic and very, very gonzo (plus delivering horror movie content and SPFX). Katsumi's visit to purgatory is merely a nightmare from which she can wake up, but is exciting nonetheless.

Auteur Manuel Ferrara plays a sort of The Devil figure more like a slicked-back hair stud/sheik with a harem, to which Katsumi applies but is initially rejected. The well-staged sex scenes flank her with a number of sexy ladies like Vicky Vette and Jada Fire, as well as some grisly horror set-pieces including one staged in an abbatoir. The veteran dwarf actor Napoleon is highy effective in a brief NonSex role, and I enjoyed hearing Ferrara's porno fan-boy praise for him in the inevitable BTS material on Disk 2 of this deluxe release, typically packaged for a higher price point with that second DVD completely unnecessary.