DVD Review: Digital Playground’s “Deeper”

I can imagine the pitch for "Deeper" at Digital Playground's palatial Van Nuys campus:

"Now don't freak out, but the last scene may or may not be confused for necrophilia."

"Security!"

Read our review of the intriguing "Deeper" after the gap.
- G. Ponante

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Deeper

Studio: Digital Playground
Director: Robby D.
Cast: Sophia Santi, Sativa Rose, Charlotte Stokely, Jessi Summers, Roxy Deville, Faith, Jayna Oso, Jenna Prseley, Kaiya Lynn, the spirit of Jesse Jane

Review by Gram Ponante

Digital Playground makes great efforts to stay on the cutting edge of newer technology, becoming early adopters of the DVD and, when HD came around, making sure the porn world knew that they made the switch. They were iPod-friendly faster than their peers and they have made the decision to go Blu-Ray when that becomes widely available.

Some may find it disturbing, then, that director Robby D. opens the movie with a shot of Sativa Rose pleasuring herself on the floor, her head jerking around ""Ring""-style. Just because you can use techniques popularized by mainstream movies (the CG skeletons in "Pirates", for example), doesn't mean it's effective.

But for me, I was all like "Hot ghost!""

Santi appears in the next scene. A man is pressed against a pane of glass. She treats the glass like she should be treating him (Santi is still being eased into a full-on pornstress role and does not have genital contact with another man in this movie).

The rest of the scenes follow a theme of voyeurism. Robby D., who comes off as your best friend in the wackier "Jack's Playground" movies (and who seems to be helming, with the more couples'-friendly Celeste, about a thousand movies a month for Digital Playground), gets darker than he does deeper, starting with an elegant couple engaging in foreplay amid shots of their dinner (some kind of tuber?) and the recessed face of what appears to be a stalker.

While the film is style-heavy it doesn't interfere too much with the substance of the movie, which still features languid shots of moody, high-strung vixens. And a strangely-fetishized dinner.

Well, make that a strangely-fetishized dinner and an inappropriately-fetishized Jesse Jane. A man uses a portrait of Jesse Jane as a marital aid in his scene with Kaiya Lynn. Someone had mentioned this scene to me as having some Jesse product placement in it, but this was ridiculous. Seriously. It was ridiculous. At one point the portrait of Jesse Jane was literally between the couple, and it was the portrait that reaped the fruit of their strivings, as it were.

I believe that was the first threesome I've ever seen with a picture as the third party. (Other than my six-foot cutout of Chewbacca we use around here, but Chewie's more of a person.)

The scene with the least baggage is one between exceptionally-white Utah native Charlotte Stokely and Scott Nails, who appears throughout this movie and is becoming one of the hardest working men in show business. She wears a maid's outfit and they have sex.

"Deeper" is also the first gonzo film that has a resolution. We revisit Santi and her glass-frustrated friend in the penultimate scene. In a sequence of loving shots of Santi's face underneath the glass, the man finally lets go atop it. It's not so arty that it's distracting. In fact, it's riveting. (I'm not sure I could take a movie full of it, though, because "Catherine" is already taken.)

"Deeper" ends anti-climactically, literally. A man comes across (but not too much) a prone lower half of a woman under a coverlet. He avails himself of what is visible. The audience is happy to learn via a few leg twitches that his scene partner is, in fact, alive. (Insert ex-wife joke here.)

I hate to use crass language in describing a porn movie, but he delivers the smallest load I've ever witnessed. No wonder, though; she was just lying there.

Ultimately, Robby D.'s twisted sense of humor and fun come out in the last scenes. It's enjoyable to watch the movie moving toward a conclusion through several thoughtfully-orchestrated sequences that deliver where they should. It's also nice to know the director is keeping himself interested.

· Digital Playground (digitalplayground.com)
· Sophia Santi (sophiasanti.org)
· Order: "Deeper" (Adult DVD Empire)

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Previously: Porn Valley Dispatch Archive