Black Orchid (1993)

An 80-minute cutdown of a 110-minute arty porn movie, with a lot of repeat footage, solarised zoom-ins on the frame and a weird sound mix that makes everything hard to follow, including the vital narration. It's about a besuited businessman (Jonathan Morgan) who gets a vampy agent (Ona Zee) to do a deal with a burned-out writer of high-class erotica (Steve Drake) – author of the eponymous book – to provide him with private chapters. However, there's no real plot here: just a procession of former sex scenes in which people joylessly grind against each other while sporting fetish accessories (leather corselets, sunglasses, thigh-boots), often with cascades of water or a high-backed chair included. It features Ariana, Sunset Thomas, Lacy Rose, Alana, Kimberley Kupps (recognisable from the name) and Veronica Hart, and works in another theme of its director Michael Ninn as lookalike women get it on together, preferably on dark empty sets lit only by static on TV screens. There's a syrupy dedication to the heartbroken at the end, which uses the expression 'quites the heart'.
KIM NEWMAN

First published in this form here.

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