Our “Killer Bodies,” Ourselves

It doesn't matter that Tori Black's character was brainwashed and tortured into being more sexually confident and assertive; she was still empowered.

Killer Bodies

Director: David Lord
Starring: Tori Black, Alexis Ford, Teagan Presley, Bree Olson, Jessica Jaymes, Raylene, Brooke Lee Adams, Barrett Blade, Seth Gamble, Randy Spears, Derrick Pierce, Eric Masterson, Chris Johnson, Sascha

Trophy wife Beth (Tori Black) is kidnapped by a quartet of thugs led by Ace (Barrett Blade) for a 30-day intensive course of homicide training. What type of person will she be when she emerges, and who is writing the check for her education?

If this sounds like the type of movie you have to make excuses to put sex in, well, yes, it's that type of porn movie. But what do you really know about the professions of thuggery and mind control? Maybe those people naturally have sex all the time.

Black is a great performer. Tall, lean, and brunette with a smoky voice, she is not the standard-issue pornstress. She is as easy to believe with her clothes off as on. And she handles the outsized requirements of the script more credibly than most of her contemporaries.

In addition to the sex scenes (opposite Wicked mainstays Blade and Randy Spears, playing her husband with a double life), Black must also be a victim and a coldhearted badass.

This allows director David Lord to create the kind of shots that all directors dream of: 1.) The inside-the-car-trunk Victim's POV made famous by Quentin Tarantino, and 2.) the slow-motion walk the protagonist makes from an explosion that she caused.

Not only that, but Lord treats us, 3.) to 4 a.m. shots of a bitchin' candy-apple Fury cruising the streets of downtown L.A. Why is Barrett Blade all moody even though he's got two girls showing their tits in the back seat and his pal feeding him french fries? It's lonely at the top, I guess.

Among Ace's bickering band of henchmen is loyal buddy Seth Gamble, evil Jessica Jaymes, and conflicted Alexis Ford. While they don't know the full plan of their employer, the mysterious Verdugo, the gang is supposed to turn Black into a killing, fucking machine using "Clockwork Orange"-style TV therapy and, in the absence of a machine that props eyelids open, a shock delivered to people who blink.

"Killer Bodies" is a 3-disc set because Adam & Eve chose to make the movie "interactive," meaning that, for example, you can see Seth Gamble and Jessica Jaymes fuck instead of Barrett Blade and Alexis Ford. Or Black could react in horror to a videotape of her "sister" having sex on film rather than her "mother."

But this is silly, because the choices don't change the outcome of the movie. It feels as if the movie is interactive for no other reason than the technology exists.

When I watched "Killer Bodies" on my computer, it started automatically. The movie begins with the villains in Ace's convertible, and the reveal of a trussed Black in the trunk. Then we see Black, earlier that evening, saying goodbye to Spears prior to his business trip and her kindnapping. To warm him up for their gentle rich husband/trophy wife lovemaking, Black screens a copy of Lord's "The A-Team XXX" in order to be stimulated by Roy Karch. It is the kind of self-promoting product placement that the porn industry and rap music have mastered.

But because the movie was on AutoPlay, sex didn't happen for a very long time, and I found myself appreciative of the slow burn. Then there was a jarring garage sex scene between Bree Olson and Chris Johnson which, though enjoyable in the way every scene with Bree Olson is enjoyable, made no sense. It was only later that I realized the scene was supposed to have been the sex scene watched by Black and Spears as foreplay.

The skipping back and forth of the interactive experience was problematic for that reason. And the narrative presented on Autoplay chooses sex scenes that don't make sense to the movie.

But the oddest pairing was Black and Teagan Presley. Presley plays a big-busted pawnshop matron who balks at just giving the newly-sprung (and vindictive) Black $800 worth of guns.

"Maybe I can pay you some other way," suggests Black.

You don't have to be a lifelong porn consumer to know that someone like Teagan Presley doesn't even take her sunglasses off unless there's a grand on the table.

Finally, porn browsers may be duped by the cover of "Killer Bodies" into thinking that somehow Black, Presley, and Ford are an elite killing team, when Black is being prepped as an army of one.

But aside from things like the interactive foolishness and the cover (porn boxcovers are usually designed by people who have nothing to do with the movie)-things that have nothing to do with the movie-"Killer Bodies" is effectively done, and restrained where it needs to be: Black's final line, "I'm going to fuck and fight my way to wherever I want to be," will doubtless be popping up in office inspirational posters and commencement speeches around the world, like "Hang in there" and "Footprints."

· Adam & Eve (adamandeve.com)
· Buy "Killer Bodies" (tlavideo.com)

Adam & Eve (adamandeve.com)
Buy "Killer Bodies" (tlavideo.com)
Adam & Eve (adamandeve.com)
Buy "Killer Bodies" (tlavideo.com)
Adam & Eve (adamandeve.com)
Buy "Killer Bodies" (tlavideo.com)
Adam & Eve (adamandeve.com)
Buy "Killer Bodies" (tlavideo.com)
Adam & Eve (adamandeve.com)
Buy "Killer Bodies" (tlavideo.com)
Adam & Eve (adamandeve.com)
Buy "Killer Bodies" (tlavideo.com)
Adam & Eve (adamandeve.com)
Buy "Killer Bodies" (tlavideo.com)
Adam & Eve (adamandeve.com)
Buy "Killer Bodies" (tlavideo.com)
Adam & Eve (adamandeve.com)
Buy "Killer Bodies" (tlavideo.com)
Adam & Eve (adamandeve.com)
Buy "Killer Bodies" (tlavideo.com)
Adam & Eve (adamandeve.com)
Buy "Killer Bodies" (tlavideo.com)
Adam & Eve (adamandeve.com)
Buy "Killer Bodies" (tlavideo.com)
Adam & Eve (adamandeve.com)
Buy "Killer Bodies" (tlavideo.com)
Adam & Eve (adamandeve.com)
Buy "Killer Bodies" (tlavideo.com)