Rise Up: Eon McKai’s “The Doll Underground”

March 31, 2008
JONNOBOT

When we say that you might forget that you're watching a dirty movie during the first several minutes of Eon McKai's new hallucinatory agitporn masterpiece "The Doll Underground" -- all recycled stock footage and fuzzy credits and screeching filmstrip soundtrack -- that's meant as a compliment; McKai has never made porn movies that look like anyone else's, and while there's something to be said for the straight-up smut style of your typical gonzo production, that's probably not why you watch one of his films in the first place. So even if "The Doll Underground" isn't likely to win over any existing alt-haters to his camp, we think it's the best example yet of why McKai remains one of the most singular and distinctive artists working in the adult industry today.

Early reports about the movie, which has been over a year in the making, described it as a story about tutu-clad suburban Gothic hotties being recruited for some sort of anti-capitalist terrorist cell. That's true enough, we guess, though the finished project is a lot more disjointed and impressionistic than that: if "The Doll Underground" is "about" anything, it's that sex is as much about power as it is about pleasure, maybe even more so. From our eminent colleague Violet Blue's five-star review:

Pulsing with energy, eerie visuals, clever pacing and deliberate editing, the film is a haiku telling the story of five young women tired of being controlled by society ("buy nothing" is repeated as a mantra) who emulate a mashup of the Weather Underground and Patty Hearst's SLA ideals. They band together in the Belmont Tunnel in Los Angeles under the direction of uber-sexy goth Lorna Adorn (Pixie Pearl), create and distribute anti-capitalist and anti-conformity propaganda (podcasts and screenprint pasteup art), build bombs and make things go boom ... Visually and throughout the delivery of the minimalistic story arc, it plays like a long, gorgeous, lush yet also somehow dark, saturated but bleak music video.
(... ) I wonder, did The Doll Underground *actually* come from porn valley? There are no blondes, no long fingernails, no fake breasts, no skinny girls, no big boobs, no fake female orgasms. The soundtrack never interrupts the sex; the sounds of sex are the focus. The women's bodies look like regular *hot* girls; the have ass, thigh, meat on those bones that make you want to cuddle and fuck and snuggle. Half the cast, at most, is tattooed; many are pierced, and two of the men are uncut. There are no unsafe or scary sex acts; no anal, no "gapes" and thankfuckinggawd no ATMs. The negative? People still wear white belts.
But let's talk about the sex; the mood is disaffected, the visuals dream-like, but the sex is riveting. Besides Pixie's solo masturbation scene (a Goth dream come true), the performers do not acknowledge the camera during sex scenes -- with one deliberate exception. Outside of sex, the performers have direct viewer "eye contact" as part of the narrative. The storytelling is for the viewer; for the sex we are but voyeurs. The editing is tight yet deliberate.
(... ) The Doll Underground is one of the best porn films I've ever seen, and it feels like anti-porn -- it's almost against the system it came from by being all that it is -- a deep investigation of culture from an industry we regard as being utterly bereft of culture beyond the superficial. Rise up, indeed. Highly recommended.

We couldn't have said it better ourselves, except maybe to add that "The Doll Underground" is one of those rare porn movies that we find ourselves watching as much for the interstitial parts and high style as for the fucking itself ... although once we remember how hot the fucking is, we find ourselves wanting to fast forward to that again too. It might not be everyone's cup of dirt pipe milkshake, but if you're looking for an utterly original porn experience that'll leave you with something more than just a sticky feeling in your pants, "The Doll Underground" is the place to be. Anti-capitalist gothic Lolitas never looked so good.