The New “Midnight Prowl” Is Comparatively Wholesome

July 12, 2011
GRAM-PONANTE

The "Midnight Prowl" series is still pretty skanky-and I like that, what with the dirty mattresses and all-but some longtime viewers might be dismayed that the spirit of the series has been violated; people seem to be having a good time.

It's different than it was. In the beginning, the late, great Jamie Gillis created his "On the Prowl" series which, if you haven't seen it, mirrors the scenes in "Boogie Nights" when Jack Horner and Rollergirl lure regular dudes into a limo for impromptu sex. In "Boogie Nights," of course, those scenes signaled the sad end of an era, but for fans of Gillis, a showman and real sexual revolutionary, the "On the Prowl" movies were the perfect confluence of porn and reality.

Years later in 2005, a man named Khan Tusion started the "Midnight Prowl" series. Sporting a blurred face and a manipulated voice, Tusion loaned an air of real depravity and dread to the proceedings, in which he'd pair up new-ish starlets with Average Joes in East Hollywood or Santa Ana dirty bookstores.

So transgressive-even for porn-were these early "Midnight Prowl" videos that they were often targeted alongside Max Hardcore videos and were often referenced when discussing porn's over-the-top edginess. Tusion's grim humor, altered voice, and degrading behavior toward women made him and Hardcore the twin anchors of porn debasement.

Those were butt-licking, feces-smeared, choky days and, while ultra-filth-friendly performers like Ava Devine took those scenes in stride, many performers didn't look like they were having the best time, which appeared to please Khan Tusion.

But in the last dozen or so episodes, "Midnight Prowl" has lost its air of reality and dread. Khan Tusion is gone, replaced by erstwhile partner Frank.

Frank still trolls around in a limousine, then repairs with his ladies, in this case Jynx Maze and the juicy Michelle Rica, to a tasteful warehouse equipped with a mattress.

Along the way they pick up porn ringers like Porno Dan and Seth Dickens, who each play up the "Will my mother see this?" act. And, though Maze and Rica would probably have felt right at home in the old days (they are accustomed to men like Frank), they are the pros of the newer, slicker pornography, and the staginess takes away our innocence even as it restores it.

· JM Productions (jerkoffzone.com)
· Buy "Midnight Prowl 21" (gamelink.com)