In The Grim Future, There Is Still Plenty Of Vertical “Horizon”

It is completely sensible for people to fuck their brains out when facing extinction, and in Sam Hain's excellent "Horizon," we are especially glad it happens to be these people.

Horizon

Studio: Wicked
Director: Sam Hain
Starring: jessica drake, Kaylani Lei, Kimberly Kane, Misty Stone, Alektra Blue, Aiden Starr, Bobbi Starr, Rocco Reed, Bill Bailey, Tony DeSergio, Zander Corvus, Danny Mountain, Andy San Dimas

It's 2097, and Earth has been de-loused of most of its population by a time-traveling race of our ancestors and their goopy blue henchmen. Human survivors, led by the grim yet ponytailed Captain Ezra (jessica drake), are saddled with a final solution: nuke the Earth and rid it of its occupying aliens, starting a new life in the galactic suburbs of Proxima Centauri.

Where is the porn potential, you ask? A good question, because in Space, no one can hear you gape.

In his handful of movies (two "Sex Files" and a "Star Trek"), Sam Hain has endeavored to keep the sex as organic to the story as porn realities allow, re-introducing the idea of longing as a setup. In "Horizon," with all its characters facing the end of their lives, the movie can completely justify the biological need to make a last-ditch attempt to further the species.

Except for the fact that this is a Wicked movie, and everyone is wearing condoms, plus there are two zero-possibilities-of-conception girl/girl scenes.

Nevertheless we are treated to several lovely sex scenes featuring uncharacteristic pairings for the insular Wicked, such as Kaylani Lei and Bobbi Starr, playing post-DADT domestic partners (!), Misty Stone and Bill Bailey (she demands he come on her dogtags, and I really hope that that is a thing in the military), and Kimberly Kane and future-human Aiden Starr.

("Why are you so white?" asks Kane.

"Because it's a Wicked movie," Starr does not reply.)

"Horizon" is intensely ambitious for porn and, in the stripped-down tradition of recent science fiction, it does an honest job of depicting star battles and explosions, as if we were watching whatever the Canadian version of the SyFy channel is. Still, there are logical flaws that take us out of the movie, like our wonder at how so few people die when two squads of soldiers are firing directly at each other in a narrow hallway, how Kimberly Kane (and her parachute!) survive their fall from the ionosphere, what Bobbi Starr's actual duties as a physicist are, why Andy San Dimas doesn't have sex with anyone, and why, when drake gives him a perfect creampie opportunity by saying "I don't want to die feeling empty," Rocco Reed still pulls out and comes on her tits.

But there are so many porny and legitimate perks that make us happy to cut "Horizon" some slack.

First and foremost, "Horizon" comes from an idea that, were it spirited away from the porn world, would make a credible and grim science fiction movie. That doesn't happen too often.

But since it is a porn movie, "Horizon" makes the most of a complex script, with people like Kaylani Lei and Tony DeSergio sinking their teeth into meaty dialogue in ways they don't often have the opportunity to.

Angles, lighting, and editing conspire to present drake, Kane, Stone, Lei, and the two Starr girls at their prettiest, as well as Alektra Blue as a sort of post-apocalyptoprostie servicing president Xander Corvus and General Danny Mountain. What's interesting about the Blue encounter is that the scene totally made me think it would be OK if most of humanity was destroyed just as long as the future held carbon-based opportunities like her. When drake and Lei walk in on the threesome, the implication is that the Mountain/Corvus/Blue 3-way is bad because it has nothing to do with love. Heady stuff.

Once again, Hain delivers an impressive, bar-raising movie. "Horizon" comes as a 4-disc set, one of which is a Blu-ray version, as well as a special features DVD.

I won't give away "Horizon"'s climax, but since the final sex scene is an interspecies girl/girl tryst without a cumshot, be prepared for a lack of a happy ending.

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Buy "Horizon" (tlavideo.com)
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Buy "Horizon" (tlavideo.com)
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Buy "Horizon" (tlavideo.com)
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Buy "Horizon" (tlavideo.com)
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Buy "Horizon" (tlavideo.com)
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Buy "Horizon" (tlavideo.com)
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Buy "Horizon" (tlavideo.com)
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Buy "Horizon" (tlavideo.com)
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Buy "Horizon" (tlavideo.com)
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Buy "Horizon" (tlavideo.com)
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Buy "Horizon" (tlavideo.com)
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Buy "Horizon" (tlavideo.com)
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Buy "Horizon" (tlavideo.com)
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Buy "Horizon" (tlavideo.com)