The Blowfish Blog

Black Worm

I’m not a huge fan of ambition for ambition’s sake — too many porn films that aspire to be something more than masturbation aids fall laughably short of their aspirations. There are exceptions, though, and Black Worm is one of them. The initial weirdness quotient is fairly high — there’s a gun-wielding monologue-spouting femme fatale, a stick-figure animation of a brutal assassination, and a discourse on the reason why there are worms in tequila bottles, and that’s all within the first 5 minutes. But the production values are so high that I had faith it was going somewhere good, and that faith was rewarded. Black Worm is a dark crime story with a postmodern flavor, and its non-linear structure, weird details, and oddball dialogue reminded me a lot of Pulp Fiction (it shares some of that film’s visual aesthetic, too, albeit with lots more onscreen sex). The acting is decent, sometimes genuinely funny or harrowing, and the director actually directs, without a lot of annoying tricks, but with camera and editing choices that enhance the film’s feel. The sex is naturalistic and hardcore, and all the sex scenes are integral to the story, from the crime boss who loans his girlfriend out to a business associate, to the dealer screwing a junkie in the bedroom of his drug den (just before he gets assassinated, natch), to the con artist seductress using her feminine wiles on a man with a very valuable briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. There are no random hook-ups here, no porn-movie artificiality where the plumber or the pizza guy drops his pants — it’s a good example of that elusive ideal, a porn movie that also works as a real feature film. Check it out, and keep an eye on new production company Pulpo. If they keep making movies like this, they’re going to be a major player in the field before long.

• Black Worm

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, 4 April 2007 at 6:15 pm and is filed under Videos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.