Altered Minds

"Altered Minds" is typical of the post-porn performing career of Jenna Jameson: abstract, producing lush gonzo content in tune with the times for her Vivid-distributed label Club Jenna and its website. The lovely female cast makes it watchable, but as with tens of thousands of similar releases in the past decade or two it requires putting one's mind on hold.

Primarily a scriptwriter, auteur D. Cypher doesn't make much of his story premise: lovely and unfamiliar (she looks most like Lesbian icon Sovereign Syre, enough resemblance to double for her) Jesse Capelli narrates as a rather mixed-up sex slave belonging to smug Nick Manning, typecast as a slimy chauvinist. She narrates sex vignettes mainly involving a character named Evil (as screenwriter I wouldn't accuse D. Cypher of being creative) portrayed by Brit Porn superstar McKenzie Lee with her big fake bazooms taking breast in show.

Evil is clad in latex as a dominatrix with a British accent, showing Jesse the ropes, as it were. Voyeurism is the main subtext, and the entire show is presented and book-ended on a TV screen, going to static. Our heroine watches Nick make love to a whore, and also watches others have sex, as well as the inevitable lesbian action between the two leads.

Film's climax is a six-girl lesbian orgy led by McKenzie in which some top talent is enlisted for masturbation and daisy-chain content. Two of the girls, still Lesbian cinema icons a decade later, are also given Bonus solos spots (masturbation of course) on the DVD: Karlie Montana and Celeste Star. Their frequent lezzie co-star and Vivid girl Kim Kane is also featured here, in her early career blonde incarnation.

Anti-climax is a final sex scene in which McKenzie services a silent Eric Masterson in an effort to mentor Jesse in how to bring out her "inner whore" (one of porn's leading clichés, alongside praise for oneself as a "slut"). This leads to a dumb ending, which I won't "spoil" (as if IMDb's warnings about Spoilers were relevant for the XXX gonzo genre), merely listing 4 alternate endings shown on the DVD, take your pick:

(A) McKenzie shoots Jesse to death metaphorically in order to take over as an alternate personality/alter ego in her body, then back physically as Jesse she laughs at master Nick, who gets mad and goes crazy at the sub rebellion;

(B) Same shooting and laughing, but Jesse suddenly stabs Nick to death with a fancy knife for a bloody finale;

(C) Same shooting and laughing, but Nick turns into an old bearded beggar type (courtesy of lousy makeup FX) and she stabs the beggar with the knife -same bloody finale as above; or

(D) Nick attacks McKenzie after her sex scene with Masterson, and a laughing Nick remains in control as end credits roll -no comeuppance for the cad.