The Taunting

Slutty goth and/or emo college students with no respect for the dead break into a monastery and its adjacent cemetery, stirring up a creepy naked ghost. But is it a good creepy naked ghost or a bad creepy naked ghost?

Director/co-writer Zenova Braeden and producer/co-writer Bob Johnson put together an atmospheric and at times genuinely spooky movie that has no lack of fleshy, fetishy sex throughout. One of the best things that can be said about a movie is, "Well I suppose it's plausible..." And this one is!

As the interlopers make their way through the building, they are tailed by Lystra, channeling every recent Japanese horror spirit in her erratic movements, uncombed hair, and her tendency to pop up in unexpected places.

Lystra as "The Ghost" seems to infect her prey with visions of all manner of BDSM sex until the couple, too, fall prey to it. It isn't made entirely clear why the ghost has this mission, but ours is not to question a good thing. So Yes, Gilligan, she is a good, good ghost.

Studio: Spice Studios
Director: Zenova Braeden
Cast: Amanda Emino, Regan Reese, Daphne Rosen, Krissy Kage, Cassidy Blue, Katja Kassin, Pia Kaamos, Anna Mills, Nikki Vega, Kaiya Lynn, Gianna, Kitty, Lystra

Review by: Gram Ponante

· Spice Studios (spicestudios.com)
· Buy "The Taunting" (gamelink.com)

Carlos Batts' "Young Hollywood" is a little like the Grover's Corners of "Our Town": everyone knows each other, there is a kindly narrator and, as the spirit of Death is ever-present in Thornton Wilder's New Hampshire hamlet, so does Glenn Danzig hover above young Hollywood. The similarities end there, though, because you'd never expect Emily Webb to flash her tits to get into a music video the way Mandy Morbid does. Read our review after the gap.

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Young Hollywood

Studio: Independent Adult Cinema
Director: Carlos Batts
Cast: Kimberly Kane, Mandy Morbid, Lystra, April Flores, Lindsey Meadows, Adrianna Nicole, Ashley Blue, Alex Gonz, Jerry, Steven St. Croix

Review by Gram Ponante

Actually, Mud's narration is more reminiscent of Samuel Jackson's omniscient DJ in "Do the Right Thing."

Like last year's "Boys' & Girls' Guide to Getting Down", "Young Hollywood" takes a snapshot of the short plain of city blocks south of the Hollywood sign, and makes no real distinction between porn performers and struggling actors (because there isn't one).

Morbid and Lystra fuck on the Mustang parked in Danzig's yard (it is actually Glenn Danzig's yard; the Satan-appreciating "Mother" vocalist lives in Hollywood) and later spend some topless time talking about cosplay and Comic-Con. This is a slightly more believable kind of unreality than what is found in traditional porn videos; it is only because the camera was on that their conversation seemed so awkward, because that's how the two of them actually talk.

It's not a rule, but porn shot in the San Fernando (Porn) Valley often looks different from porn shot over the hill in Hollywood and downtown L.A. We meet Kimberly Kane on the set of a movie. She fucks Steven St. Croix on an art installation chopper and makes plans on her phone for going out later. No Porn Valley McMansion and no chirpy starlet: just the angular, frank, and badass Kane in a room festooned with Atari art.

A lot of porn movies come with behind the scenes footage, and it is there where any consumer can become well-versed in what it is like to shoot a porn movie. Often this footage is ten times more entertaining than the movie it accompanies. "Young Hollywood" takes a different angle and seeks to dramatize the backstage logistics. In that way it is like an X-rated reality show.

Adrianna Nicole looks particularly sirenesque in a bathing cap on a Hollywood roof. Downstairs she gets fucked in the shadows of the venetian blinds in an empty apartment. Something about the light identifies Los Angeles - that and the fact that, if Adrianna Nicole lived on the east coast, who would ever leave?

Natural light plays more of a role in Ashley Blue's segment with Alex Gonz. It's twilight in Los Angeles and they're on the rooftop pool. This is a really good look for Blue, a very cool light.

The movie culminates at a party in Beverly Hills with fire dancers and carrying on; this scene is poorly lit and anticlimactic. But overall, "Young Hollywood" succeeds in its music, its sense of place, and its very loving photography. The statements it seeks to make about celebrity and hanging out would be more effective without the narrator telling us what we already picked up from the action, though.

Still, "Young Hollywood" paints a nice picture of Our Town; everybody gets along and looks good. It's a much better postcard for the area than the Christmas parade on Hollywood Boulevard.

· Carlos Batts (carlosbatts.com)
· Adam & Eve (adameve.com)

Spice Networks, a filthy little division of Playboy, threw a party for the release of Zenova Braeden's "The Taunting" last night in Hollywood. On hand were star Lystra and the multitalented Aiden Starr, who served as costumer for the movie.

Lystra was made up (in the film) to look like Sadako from "Ringu" and she was so frightened by the poster that she said she was going to hang it facing the wall. Lystra is intriguing. Last time we met Lystra, she was in a cage.

Reenacting a scene from "Evil Head" were Gia Paloma and Tommy Pistol. "Your hair looks different," I observed. "I wore a wig!" she pointed out. Last time we met Gia, she was in a cage.

New Los Angeles residents Zak Sabbath and Mandy Morbid share a kiss by the candelabra. It's like I wasn't even there. "Hey John and Yoko, give peace a chance!"

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Previously: Popshots Archive