Cinema Erotique – Trying harder
Cherry Chapman of Cinema Erotique really does try hard of make interesting elevated porn films, and she’d probably rather that we called it erotica and maybe we should. They do have varied themes and they do put a lot of work into sets, scripts (which they term “dramatic erotic”), and production values. The women are pretty and there is enough hard-core fucking and masturbation to satify most porn hunters. The site design is kind of dated and cheesy (and it can load slow so be patient), and they seem to think that saying “un film de” rather than “a video by” makes them sound better, but that’s not really what you care about right? So we’ll overlook the dated site and honor them for trying hard to make decent porn — or erotic — films.
But that’s also the rub — they try too hard. Making a good film is very difficult but the hardest thing for most speilberg wannbe’s is to recognize that they aren’t speilberg or even another arrogant washed-up no-talent film maker we could name. Even if they have the vision, they don’t have the money, the staff, or the talent. The people they work with are hired to fuck decoratively on camera, not speak lines or act, and they do the latter two very badly as rule.
So having high production values backfires if they are high enough to move you out of porn land but not into real film land. Look at the screen cap below to see what I mean:
That’s an elaborate set by internet porn standards — and hey! there’s a costume too! — but it’s kind of embarrassing, like a pornographic second-rate high school play. That shot is from a film about sexual fantasies that, among other thing, features a girl christ figure with a porn-starlet landing strip. For me that sort of ruins the ride, right there, but it does get worse. They actually did some blue-screen effects in this movie! My advice — don’t go there. Nothing looks worse than doing a sophiscated effect badly, and while I admire their brass in atempting it, these are done really badly. Ouch! (Go here to see the trailer.)
They also have upcoming feature called The Claw (also the name of an icon of uber-cheesy 50’s sci-fi horrow flicks) featuring a really goofy rubber claw hand (and some trees on fire) about which they say: “Horror meets erotica in this thriller full of suspense, erotism and high pitch sreams [sic]… The Claw is coming!” (Yeah, right — and I’m going. Ouch^2.)
For another cheesy example with side of fries, see The Prisoner, and for something with less cheese, there is Models.
Mainstream porn makers figured out in the early 80s that confusing film-making and porn-making was a bad idea and started making porn that was just about sex without any pretentions to acting, plot, or art. When they let the actors try to act, they mainly made porn that you had watch with the sound turned off and the fast-forward button at the ready. Unfortunately that’s where Cinema Erotique still is.
Now, to be fair, you might like The Claw or their other offerings, and the videos do have a certain goofy, campy charm. But my feeling is they take themselves way too seriosuly at Cinema Erotique and probably would not appreciate being looked on as cheesy, campy, or goofy. Oh well….
If you want to see an example of how to make a good short video with some genuine erotic tension and actual art to it, check out Prelude by X-muse. It may have its flaws but it shows how three people and one camera and a beach and a very good eye can really work together to create something inspired. The video works because it works with the constraints of the video makers; they didn’t try to do things they could not and they used what they had very nicely to come up with a very sweet 5 minutes of fun, thought-provoking, sexy video.
We wish Cinema Erotique would take some pointers from X-muse because with the resources they have, they could then make something very good. But as Dirty Harry said, “You gotta know your limitations.”