Mike's Porn Reviews

The Craving

This is one of those big-budget Wicked Pictures movies: a fact that becomes obvious as soon as you pop the disc into the player and you see the slick production of the 16x9 DVD. The movie seems to be a porno compilation of classic fairy tales, and starts with blonde Jessica Drake (sans the usual porno glamour makeup) introducing you to each fairy tale scene in some strangely disjointed footage. I assume the jerky video and ghostly "dream" filter were a deliberate atmospheric effect, but it's annoying. Similarly, even though you can't see it in these small screenshots, the entire film has a lot of grain artificially added to it, no doubt because the director thought it would look artistic (either that, or because the grainy footage would obscure the performers' imperfections such as uneven skin tone or breast enlargement scars).

The first fairy tale stars Jessica herself, and is the story of Sleeping Beauty. As per the classic fairy tale, only the kiss of true love will awaken her. She starts the scene covered in vines, surrounded by the finest fake snow that Hollywood can make. Luckily for our sleeping princess, Justin Magnum soon appears, and he looks enough like a daytime soap opera star to satisfy any female viewer. He kisses her, the fake snow stops falling, and the foreplay begins.

The following sex scene is typical Wicked Pictures fare, so you're looking at competent use of the camera and lighting, but not a lot of raunch. There is no anal, and there isn't even any hard pounding vaginal. It looks like the way a 15 year old envisions a couple's wedding night, so if you're looking for a hardcore scene, you won't find it here. They seem to be enjoying themselves, but the scene is just too tame. Even porno beginners would probably find it tame. It's also short: from start to finish, including foreplay, the actual sex lasts roughly 8 minutes. That's barely enough to cover foreplay in most movie sex scenes.

The second fairy tale is the story of the Pied Piper. Porno comedy standby Randy Spears takes the title role, but the story has a minor twist on the original: the town is not infested by rats, but by "harlots and whores". The piped piper leads them out of town, whereupon a lot of group sex ensues.

Our lucky pied piper Randy Spears is about to have a go with four of the town harlots: Jessica Drake (in her second scene of the movie), Brooke Haven, Kayla Carrera, and Kimberly Kole.

Unfortunately, the presence of our four lovely (and in many cases, surgically enhanced) ladies does not necessarily guarantee a good scene. One of the problems with so-called "reverse gang-bangs" is that, to put it bluntly, a man only has one cock, so he cannot service more than one woman at a time. In a conventional male-on-female gang-bang, a woman can take on three men at a time: one in her pussy, one in her ass, and one in her mouth. But in a female-on-male gang-bang, you generally have several women amusing themselves with lesbian sex while the man fucks one woman. This scene is no exception to that rule. And once again, the scene is done in the typical Wicked Pictures style: competent but tame. And like the first scene, it's also short: from start to finish, including foreplay, the sex lasts roughly 12 minutes. That's longer than the first scene, but it's still not too impressive.

Our third fairy tale is the story of Little Red Riding Hood: a story with numerous porno adaptations already on the books. Something about the story of a lost girl being waylaid by a Big Bad Wolf seems to pique the interests of porno fans and producers, but my wife Rebecca has informed me that she's not keen on the idea at all. Apparently, despite the fact that Little Red Riding Hood is invariably played by a fully-grown adult in these movies (in this case, Chelsie Rae), the fact that the story is derived from a fairy tale about a little girl makes her feel creepy about the idea. This one takes an unusual approach: the Big Bad Wolf is actually a real wolf, who turns into a werewolf (played by Tyler Knight) under a full moon. So our wolf stalks Little Red Riding Hood during the day, then turns into a werewolf at night and has his way with her.

The sex in this scene is a bit stronger than in the previous two scenes, and Tyler gives Chelsie the film's first anal. Unfortunately, it's still rather tame in atmosphere, and it's also the shortest scene so far: from start to finish, including foreplay, we're talking about roughly 7 minutes. This is quite frankly pathetic. So far we're 45 minutes into the film, and only 60% of that 45 minutes has been composed of actual sex. Does Brad Armstrong understand why people watch porno movies? I'm starting to wonder.

The fourth fairy tale is the story of Rapunzel. If this film keeps to form, the setup will be creative and well-produced, but the scene itself will be tame, and short. Rapunzel is played by Mikayla and her rescuer is played by Tommy Gunn.

As per the classic fairy tale, she lets down the infamous rope of her braided hair, and he uses it to climb the tower. They have sex and once again, it's well-done but tame and a little short: 12 minutes, just like scene #2. And at the end of the scene, we discover that Rapunzel has tied up her Prince and intends to keep him a prisoner of her sexual appetite forever. Once again, it's a cute scene and a cute setup, but it's light on the actual sex.

The fifth and final fairy tale (which actually contains three short scenes) is the story of the Enchanted Forest, in which Jessica Drake stars (in her third scene of the film) and kisses a frog to turn him into Chris Cannon. She's probably wishing she was with Justin Magnum again, because Chris Cannon has one of those mutton-faces which simply screams "moron". He looks like the kind of dim-witted knuckle-dragger who used to lean across the aisle to read the answers off your math test back in the sixth grade, and then got pissed off at you if you kept your arm in the way so he couldn't see them (by the way, if you're one of those dim-wits yourself, please don't misinterpret the previous statement as a veiled insult; it was a full-blown in-your-face insult).

Anyway, the ensuing sex scene is a bit unusual, to say the least: it's all foreplay, no real sex. He licks her pussy for a while, she sucks his cock for a while, he blows his load, and she goes on her merry way. She soon runs into a second frog, who she kisses to transform him into Joey Ray. He's a more dignified-looking figure than Chris Cannon (who wouldn't be?), but the ensuing sex scene is also pure foreplay. She sucks his cock for a little while and then he pops in her mouth. Borrrrring.

After finishing off Joey Ray in her mouth, she moves onto a third frog, who she kisses to no effect. It turns out that frog #3 is just an ordinary frog, but Marcus London quickly shows up, wearing a dashing red coat and sabre with matching British accent. He looks vaguely reminiscent of Sting, from The Police. Anyway, she goes down on him and ... it's a blowjob-only scene again! What a complete waste of time.

In conclusion, this film might appeal to people who like tame, short, by-the-numbers sex scenes interspersed with lots of fairy-tale setup action and sumptuous production values. Not to me, though. All of that pomp and circumstance for a bunch of lame-ass sex scenes which never really get started and which never really build up any heat, all shot in pretentious GrainyVision. The worst thing is that all of the main "porno review sites" will probably gush over it. Nothing pleases them more than high-end production value: it feeds their pretentious belief that porno should be "taken seriously".

Rating: 2/5
Anal/DP: yes (anal)
Choking/slapping/abuse: no
Running time: 1 hour, 21 minutes
Video quality: Good but not great (deliberately grainy)
Studio: Wicked Pictures
Producer: Brad Armstrong
Director: Brad Armstrong

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