4.5
out of 5.00 -
Film:
3
Extras:
5
Video:
5
Audio:
5
-
9/26/2008
Oh, how I wanted to love
The Wicked. This is one of Wicked Pictures' two (the other being
Fallen) big Fall releases, a movie they hope will vie for numerous AVN awards come January. Helmed by Michael Raven,
The Wicked is visually slick, well-directed and nicely paced. However it fails in two essential areas: sex and story. And those, my friends, are the two areas you
don't want to strike out in.
I'm not giving away any secrets by telling you that this is a vampire movie. We've seen adult tackle vampires in the past, most notable in Nic Andrews' two great
Dark Angels flicks.
The Wicked's vampires, however, are so poorly developed and take up so little of the movie's screen time that they are simply props instead of characters. I'm pretty sure we don't learn the names or motives of a single vampire in the movie, and to add insult to injury, Raven wastes actor Evan Stone by casting him as one of the vamps and then giving him a grand total of
zero lines of dialogue. If you don't count the grunting and snarling, that is.
The sex scenes are also a problem. There are a total of seven in this 106-minute movie, but the vast majority of them are quite timid, even for a movie aimed at the couples' market. The first scene (a desert romp between Scarlett Fay and Aaron Wilcox) covers only one position and doesn't even include a pop-shot. Later scenes in the movie are equally short on positions and time, and very few of them flow naturally from the story that Raven is trying to tell.
The plot of
The Wicked has a group of friends (including Kalyani Lei, Barrett Blade and Voodoo) heading out into the desert for the "Black Rock Festival" - essentially a weekend of sex, drugs and rock n' roll for young adults. Kaylani stars as Jane, who's recently been betrayed by her fiancé (Rocco Reed) and is now dating Barrett. She's also started to have dreams and visions of some of the vampires we'll meet up with later in the movie. Along the way to Black Rock, the travelers pick up a stranded young couple (played by Stormy Daniels and Derrick Pierce) who seem like just an odd couple at first, but will play a pivotal role in the movie's conclusion.
As far as A/V quality is concerned,
The Wicked looks and sounds fantastic. Given the theme of the film, many scenes take place at night, but Raven does a good job lighting them, and the movie looks great. Audio is in 5.1 Dolby and is equally as good, a real treat since Raven fills up much of his soundtrack with rock songs that provide a real Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino kind of feel to the action. Viewers will also have the option of listening to either a music-only or digital sex-only version of the soundtrack.
Although
The Wicked just didn't work for me, I'm still giving the film an average rating just because of how good it looks and how well it was put together. Production value is high on this one, and there are some nifty effects (some of which you may not even know are effects until you watch the bonus materials) that are worth checking out.
Speaking of the bonuses, they're top-notch here, with Wicked devoting an entire second disc to extras. "Blood And Lust" is a 22-minute behind the scenes featurette on the making of the movie, while "Girls Of
The Wicked" is a montage of separate photo shoots with stars Kaylani Lei, Tori Black, Mikayla Mendez, Sophia Santi, Roxy DeVille and Scarlett Fay. This featurette runs about 13-minutes in length.
Also on the extras disc is an interview with Director Michael Raven; a bloopers reel; outtakes; an SFX (special effects) reel; two extended sex scenes from the movie (one with Stormy and Derrick, the other with Jenny Hendrix and Rocco Reed); and bonus sex scenes from other Wicked titles (Kaylani and Deep Threat from
The Accidental Hooker, and Mikayla and Scott Styles from
Se7en Deadly Sins). "The Cast Speaks!" and "The Extras Speak!" are featurettes with interviews with various members of the cast, while "The Wicked Comedy Horror" is a series of short clips of various people (including Evan Stone) screwing around or playing practical jokes during the shoot.
The second DVD wraps up with the typical kind of features one sees on most Wicked releases: slide shows; cast bios; promo materials; and 8 trailers, one of which is the trailer for
The Wicked. All of the above extras, with the exception of one of the 8 trailers (Stormy Daniels'
Bound) and the bonus scene from
The Accidental Hooker are presented in anamorphic widescreen with 2.0 Dolby Digital sound.
Perhaps I set my expectations too high? I'd like to think so, but Wicked Pictures is the studio that brought us
Operation Desert Stormy,
Coming Home,
Space Nuts and even Raven's own
The Visitors - and by those standards
The Wicked just doesn't hold up well from either a sexual or storytelling standpoint. It's well-produced enough to deserve a viewing, but I can't imagine this movie getting a lot of repeat views from porn fans.
I appreciate the effort that went into this one (and my technical ratings in this review reflect it), but my job as an adult reviewer is to ignore the amount of time and money that goes into a project and just ask the most simple of questions: Was I entertained? While this review will do doubt be in the minority of what you'll see across the Net in the coming days and months, I don't think I'll be alone in my opinion that when it comes to both hardcore action and horror-filled thrills,
The Wicked is a title somewhat lacking in bite.
By:
Spooky