Room For Rent

Vivid Entertainment

Genre: Feature

Director: Paul Thomas

Cast: Savanna Samson, Nick Manning, Ashley Long, Ariana Jollee, Jamie Lynn, Kurt Lockwood, Rebecca Bardoux, Kelly Kline, Dana Vespoli, Dale DaBone

Length: 87.5 minutes

Date of Production: 8/5/2003 (box), 2/2/2004 (credits)

Extra's: My favorite extra was the 10 minute long Behind the Scenes feature by Dave Stotts. I know I'm in the minority on stuff like this but it was value added content that showed some interesting footage for me. Most of you will actually appreciate the five bonus scenes more; three starred Savanna Samson and one even had Cherokee (a personal favorite of mine-someone at Vivid is trying to manipulate me I think…) but all were pretty good in terms of entertainment value. The other extras were generic, a couple of photogalleries, trailers, positions room, double-sided DVD cover, mini-Savanna biography, and forced spam. This is the standard Vivid package these days and not a bad deal when the bonus scenes are good but more unique content would go a long way to making me happy.

Condoms: Yes

Audio/Video Quality: The picture was presented in non-anamorphic widescreen color with an approximate aspect ratio of 1.78:1. I had high hopes going into this one since it advertised itself as "A Vivid High Definition DVD" and an older title released recently looked good (Joyride) so a newer release with all the bells and whistles should blow my socks off. Needless to say, I found the advertising hype to be completely misleading. The lighting was so bad that nearly every scene was hopelessly flawed and barely watchable. The resultant grain and video noise were off the charts in most cases and that was only the tip of the iceberg (yeah, I'm thinking Titanic here too). I won't belabor the point though, other reviewers have noticed the problems too (I had to see if I had a bad copy but it wasn't just me) and it's a shame that such a great cast was wasted. The audio was presented in the usual stereo English and not great but better than the visuals here.

Body of Review: Savanna Samson is one of those porn stars that make your toes curl up with delight when you watch them in action. Her moves, her looks, and even her throaty vocals get me in the mood in no time. Being a Vivid contract performer these days, she's left her wilder side behind her but she still manages to float my boat, if you catch my drift. Her latest release is a little movie called Room For Rent; a movie about a gal looking for a new place to stay. The plot was lost in the scenes, a fact that would be a good thing if the technical values were better. In any case, here's a breakdown of the scenes by cast if you're as big a fan as I am for the cast:

Scene One: Savanna is the hot blond lead that can be seen on the front DVD cover. Personally, I think worlds of her sexual ability and good looks, as do many other fans. I just wished she would've had more of a scene here than just a masturbation sequence. The toy use was kind of weak and she really wasn't allowed a chance to shine here, weakening the action for me.

Scene Two: Savanna, this time outside by some trees, took on Nick, who was sporting his newer hair style. I loved seeing her ass stick out as she blew him and the two were joined by Ashley, after she masturbated as she watched the couple. There was a lot of oral and straight sex but the gals each took anal too. My biggest complaint was the poor technical values during this scene, particularly the lighting (no fill lighting to start with but it got worse when the inside sex started and no attempt was made to make it look good). If I want sex in the dark, I'll grab a two-bagger at the local pub before closing time and put a bag on my head (as well as hers-in case mine falls off).

Scene Three: Ariana, a gal that's taking the porn world by storm these days, and Jamie, had a masturbation scene together where they seemed to act like their AIM tests hadn't been received in time for the shoot. I liked seeing them go at it but I think if they had attacked one another it would've been much hotter.

Scene Four: Ariana, probably warmed up from the last scene, took care of Kurt in the follow up scene. They were watching porn in the living room like all normal people do (cough) and he went down on her after sniffing her panties from the laundry basket. This was enough to set her off into blowing him with her usual brand of high energy and they two then boned in a few positions, doing some anal after a minor spanking. She took a facial and showed rare chemistry for this type of movie, making it a winner of a scene (but for the picture).

Scene Five: Rebecca, a more experienced gal and a long time fan favorite, had a scene with Kurt this time. While she's old enough to be the mother of some of the industry's newest performers, she can still routinely outperform any of them (easily). This scene was slower and more sensual, giving it more replay value than most of the others. It had oral and straight sex only but her vocalizations kept it above the pack too. She recently started up her own company of female-friendly movies L8Show Productions, that I hear makes some decent stuff.

Scene Six: Kelly, Dana, and Savanna, had a lesbian scene on a large bed but Savanna must've found it too hot to take so she cooled down with Dale in a separate part f the house. As the lesbian action warmed up, with lots of licking and toy use, Savanna blew Dale and the two got down and dirty.

Summary: I think there was a lot of sexual potential among the cast here and if not for the terrible picture and weak sound, it could've been a big hit for me. I can only suggest it as a Skip It for the technical reasons listed but I'm hoping someone just screwed up the DVD mastering so that it can be released in a much better looking version some day for fans. From what I could see, the gals gave some good performances and it'd be a shame if they were lost to eternity over what amounts to a bad set of choices over the release. It was by no means worth a description of "high definition" and I just hope that Vivid works past this one to focus on bettering their future releases.

Note: You can see recent candid shots of several of these performers by visiting: My Photo's and read about their antics at 2004 AEE Show.