Sequels have long been one of the most
parodied aspects of adult film and justifiably so, with there being
thousands of gonzo adult videos released as part of numerous series who's
entry numbers are into the double digits. Even some of greats were
susceptible of falling into the never-ending sequel trap given the
various changes the adult industry throughout the years. For instance
John Leslie's Voyeur series lasting for 37 entries before Leslie's
death in 2010. Still, much like mainstream films, there are instances
of adult sequels that break the mold, even if they're destined to be
overshadowed by their predecessors. One of the most crucial and
influential titles from the “golden age” of porn or “porno
chic”, Gerard Damiano's The Devil in Miss Jones (1973), first got a
sequel in 1982 from Henri Pachard in which star Georgina Spelvin
returned to the titular role of Justine Jones. Four years later the
series would take a drastically different turn under the direction of
Gregory Dark with The Devil in Miss Jones 3: A New Beginning and its
immediate follow-up The Devil in Miss Jones 4: The Final Outrage.
Dark would return to the franchise years later with The Devil in Miss
Jones 5: The Inferno, which once again saw Dark putting Justine Jones
through his warped vision of the underworld while continuing to take
the adult video into more bizarre and difficult territories.
Following a terrific opening credits
sequence set to the infectious tune of the Gleaming Spires “A
Christian Girls Problems”, A New Beginning introduces a new
variation on the character of Justine Jones. After an argument with
her cheating boyfriend, Justine (Lois Ayres) hits the town and brings
home a despondent groom (Paul Thomas) who was dumped at the altar,
though their rendezvous is cut short when Justine hits her head on
the headboard, breaking her neck. Awakening to total darkness,
Justine is greeted by Negro (Jack Baker), welcoming her into Hell.
Not believing any of it, Negro informs Justine of a way out, a
treacherous trek through the various sexual perversities of Hell.
New Wave Hookers (1985) may be the film
Dark will be best remembers for, but there's a strong case to be made
for The Devil in Miss Jones 3 being his finest work. Perhaps no other
hardcore film of Dark's best represents just how different and
innovative a filmmaker Dark is and just how much he stood out from
his contemporaries working in the adult field in the 80's. The only
possible comparison being Stephen Sayadian's Nightdreams (1981) and
Cafe Flesh (1982), with Dark's immaculate production design fully
embracing the artifice of his unique vision of Hell, each new
scenario Justine is either witness to or a participant in being more
arresting than the last. Equally eye-popping is leading lady Lois
Ayres, who's “new wave hooker” look and irritable mood are in
perfect synchronicity with Dark's “fuck you” attitude. Always an
incendiary filmmaker, the film feels even more daring the older it
gets, the racially charged barbs hurled back and forth between Ayres
and Baker are sure to have some blushing more than the outrageous,
oftentimes taboo shattering sexual content. Both play off each other
brilliantly, virtually every line of dialogue uttered by Baker and
Aryes responses being hysterically funny, though the film is also a
who's who of some of the biggest names in the adult field of the time
like Tom Byron, the previously mentioned Paul Thomas, Amber Lynn, and
Vanessa Del Rio who, in one of the films most unforgettable scenes,
finds herself ravaged by a gang of rat men.
Shot as one long film but split up into
two releases, The Final Outrage continues where A New Beginning left
off with Justine continuing her trek through Hell. Dark takes the
racial element even further with a specific section of Hell, “the
racist room”, designated for individuals condemned to fornicate
with those they felt superior too while living and later in the film
Dark obliterates a specific taboo that, while hardly rare in adult
films, is approached in a manner so blunt, very few if any other
directors would have the nerve to attempt. Part 4 also carries over
another, crucial aspect that featured prominently in the third and
which would become a staple in Dark's films, the interview concept.
Throughout both films, there are numerous cutaways to interviews or
testimonials with various people from Justine's life, each giving
their impressions of what kind of person she truly was. These
segments are equally funny and bizarre as the rest of the film and
while character development wasn't exactly Dark's main priority with
the films, they do serve to make that previously mentioned taboo
scenario all the more perverse. The idea of the interview, or
“interrogation”, is one of the few parallels that can be drawn
between Dark's hardcore work and his erotic thrillers, with several
of his softcore protagonists “confessing” the narrative to either
an interviewer or directly to the camera and later hardcore works
like Snake Pit (1996) and the Shocking Truth (1996-'97) films being
centered around interviews with the female performers.
The Inferno, the fifth in the series
and the last to be directed by Dark, is also the most surreal and
abstract. While the film is built around the premise of yet another
recently deceased Justine Jones, played by an almost entirely silent
Juli Ashton, being thrust into a variety of sexual scenarios by Satan
himself, this time played with scene chewing gusto by non-sex Dark
favorite Rip Hymen in an absurd devil costume, Dark takes the same
approach as he did with New Wave Hookers 4 (1995), nearly dispensing
with narrative altogether in favorite of a Dante-inspired tableaux of
highly imaginative and immaculately designed sex scenes. While not as
charged as the third and forth films in terms of sensitive subject
matter, Dark does take some none-too-subtle shots at feminism, with
Hymen describing Justine as a virtuous drag and if the name Justine
didn't already make it obvious, the influence of the Marquis de Sade
is apparent in all the films and perhaps moreso in The Inferno, with
Justine's “initiation” into the various sexual proclivities of
the underworld being very Sadean in nature. Like New Wave Hookers 4,
The Inferno was shot on video and finds Dark using the format to
become even more experimental with editing, the film being the most
delirious of Dark's entries in the series, making use of music
video-esque quick cuts that would only become more pronounced in
Dark's future adult videos and it would only be a year later that
Dark began directing actual music videos.
While speaking to Psychotronic Video in 1997, Dark explained DMJ5 by saying “In a sense, DMJ5 is sort of
the concept of the tarot card as a joke, the devil as a jokester
manipulating reality through media images. Media images really
interest me so we worked that into the script.” The Inferno was
also the end of the line for Dark and VCA, who had been his
distributor since his first adult feature with the second half of the
Dark Bros. duo being Walter Gernert, AKA Walter Dark, co-owner at
VCA. In the same Psychotronic piece, Dark explained “I probably
could have sat down with VCA and worked it out... VCA's attitudes
about music, content and dialogue are very conservative. And in my
films it's not that I want to denigrate or be misogynistic so much. I
just want to explore visual imagery which VCA doesn't find
particularly erotic. My stuff is about, visual interesting shit with
sex going on. It's not necessarily about eroticism.” It's precisely
that attitude that made gave Dark's adult films their reputation.
Being sequels to one of the biggest titles of the porno chic era, The
Devil in Miss Jones sequels are perhaps going to be overshadowed by
the legendary first film, but Dark's three films in the series stand
as some of his best work with the fifth film leading to a new chapter
in his career.
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