For consumers and collectors interested in erotica that’s both artistic and evocative, Cult Epics releases Nico B’s “Sin.”
From the director of films like “Bettie Page: Dark Angel,” his short film “Sin” is a very unique and sophisticated anthology about sex, obsession and the idea of sin. Nico B’s artistic direction is quite fascinating even if “Sin” isn’t one hundred percent as engrossing as it should be. Nico B. explores these ideas through three stories set in various parts of time. There’s “Lady of the East” which involves an Egyptian Dancer who seduces an American traveler. This leads to a rather violent result when he brings the dancer across the world and reveals the bigger more heinous sum of the power of money.
“Le Modele” is about a sculptor’s model, a nun and a priest, all of whom are involved in various forms of debauchery and unusual forms of sexual stimulation. Nico B. even features a close up shot of a nun masturbating with a cruficix. You wouldn’t think such an image could inspire gasps, but the way Nico B. stages and frames the shot, as well as the intent behind it, it’s quite effective. The most titillating of the stories is “The Maid” which involves a legless drug addict who becomes absolutely obsesses with his incredibly sexy and voluptuous maid.
She’s played by absolutely stunning Dahlia Dark who is featured in various states of undress and is tasked with becoming his object of obsession as he hires her mainly to watch her sleep and perform various tasks in the nude. “Sin” is arthouse erotica with a lot of emphasis on the artistic process behind the release. Cult Epics gives fans the Blu-Ray and DVD copy, along with a slew of extras.
There are three teasers for “Sin,” Nude outtakes clocking in at five minutes, six super 8 silent films including “Slime,” “Tarzan Acapulco,” “Chelsea Hotel,” and “The Painter.” For collectors there’s a sixty-four page booklet with original concept art, and storyboard drawings by Brian M. Viveros.
For more vintage collectors, Impulse Pictures releases the DVD versions of their popular “42nd Street Forever” Peep Show Collections finally available for fans. Peep Show Collection Volume 17 clocks in at over a hundred minutes and features the splitting of usual chapters for fans of various fetishes. The first five shorts are devoted to guy/girl action, then groups of three or more for the next five including orgies and oral sex, and then girl-on-girl only for the last batch. There are various shorts with titles like “Bondage Bootlicker,” and “Western Fox.” Some of my favorites include “Pistol Packer,” the really good “Bitch in Heat,” and the girl on girl short “Sweet and Wet” about casual lesbian sex beside a small pond. The shorts all come with the novelty film camera audio effect, which can be switched on or off, but is so much more entertaining for the intended experience.
The compilation ends with a bang with the great girl on girl short “Hot Flesh.” Included in the DVD box, porn Archaeologist Dimitrios Otis regales buyers with his essay on visiting the last of the Porn Arcades, and his past recollections of paying for reels involving girl on girl and girl on guy. He even cites prices in the final paragraph of the essay, allowing a more vivid picture of what going downtown for some X Rated fun cost a normal admirer of pornography. For Peep Show Collection Volume 18, there’s almost two hours of short reels split in to various categories, once again. There is man on woman, girl on girl, and orgies with your typical class of gritty and titillating adult films that Impulse restores to the best of their abilities.
Among some of the best in the bunch are “Brother and Sister” an incest guy on girl short, there’s “Zerba the Greek” involving a Greek man taking on two gorgeous women, and the very good “Girls Will Be Girls” involving a house vixen luring an overheated woman off the street for some baby oil soaked girl on girl. “Volume 18” features probably some of the strongest shorts out of the collection yet, and despite the lacking quality of a few of the films, it’s one of the better volumes so far. Featured in the edition is an essay by Dimitrios Otis who offers up part three about his adventures in the Porn Arcades and peep shows of the seventies and his venturing in to one of the last of its kind “The Movieland Arcade.”