MESMERIZED
Wicked Pictures
Directed by Barrett Blade
Run Time 165 minutes
MESMERIZED MEMBERS
Alektra Blue, Briana Blair, Britney Amber, Kiera King, Charles Dera, Danny Wylde, Eric Masterson, Tommy Gunn
I’m feeling pretty conflicted about my latest Wicked Pictures’ couples-oriented feature film, Mesmerized. On the one hand, I kind of like the fun storyline and the fact that the main character is a relatable male character — a rarity in a super-homophobic and male-run industry like the one that Wicked pretty much embodies. Danny Wylde’s character Albert is adorably depressed throughout the movie and I really felt for him. And hey, some of the sex (mostly Danny’s scenes, incidentally — I think I may see a new porn crush developing) is really hot. Like, “Woah, these performers must have been drooling over each other for months hoping to get cast together” kind of hot. Like, “I really want to have that kind of sex right now” kind of hot. Like, “Damn, honey, I’m glad we rented this movie, let’s get naked” kind of hot.
But on the other hand, there are a few major snags. First of all, we get to watch a handful of straight scenes and one FFM threeway (which is pretty faptastic, to be honest), but the film only hints at lesbian sex. What the hell, man? Why on earth would Barrett Blade think that his audience wouldn’t want to watch two beautiful women get it on, but would want to watch two women get it on with a penis in the middle? The logic, or lack thereof, is mind-boggling.
But the real issue I have with Mesmerized is that the take-home message seems to be that playing with the minds of others using hypnotism, totally heedless of the consequences and possible side effects, leads to happiness and great sex. Don’t get me wrong: I understand that this is a silly porno and that the idea of hypnotizing someone into falling madly in love isn’t exactly Oscar-consideration-worthy subject matter. But still, it seems a bit too silly. Almost dangerously so.
The thing about movies like Mesmerized is that they’re kind of watered-down, pseudo-family friendly porn. The kind that, if you’d stumbled upon it in your parents’ bedroom when you were young, would have left you with a pretty positive, well-informed, healthy understanding of sex. Men and women seem to like each other, respect each other’s needs (mostly—the women do seem to be doing a lot of the work while the men grunt), and use protection. There’s no crazy degradation or meanness or bizarre fringe acts that could confuse the uninitiated about what sex should be like. It’s all very straightforward and, while sometimes boringly heteronormative, ridiculously fantastical (I mean, really, Alektra Blue’s character Hannah is supposed to be over-the-top slutty, but who SLEEPS in their fuck-me boots?), and packed with unrealistic bodies, it’s fun. But show a young person a movie that suggests that hypnotizing the object of your creepily stalkerish obsession into falling desperately, madly in love with you will end in blissful happiness for you both? That could get somebody hurt.
But then, if you put it all into context, who could take this seriously? I’d like to think that America’s youth, even if easily misled about sex, are savvy enough to pick out the just-plain-dumb bits. First off, there’s the fuck-me boots, which are have no place in a bed, ever, even if they make it into the bedroom. And then, of course, there’s Alektra Blue’s body, which is so unnaturally perfect I kind of get freaked out that it turns me on. Then there’s the sex itself, which is hot and all (at least in most of the scenes) but lasts WAY longer than is reasonable in almost every case. I mean, I love a prolonged lovemaking session, as does anybody, but some of these marathon humpfests border on boring after the first thirty minutes or so. If it weren’t for the excellent cumshots in most of these scenes, I’d be bored to tears by the end of most of them
Then there’s the fact that, even when the characters getting it on are supposedly doing it for the first time, the women are never surprised by the enormous size of their partners’ dongs. This one gets me every time. Let me tell you, if I hooked up with a random stranger at my new neighbor’s house party (ahem, and the cock that sprang forth when I unzipped his fly was the size of Danny Wylde’s, you’d better believe I’d make some kind of remark about how surprised I was. I’d probably gasp and get all wide-eyed and make some totally stupid comment. I might even try to run away in fear for the integrity of my vaginal walls. But in the movies, the woman never bats an eye when a Kraken-tentacle sized shlong appears — it’s as if these monster members were parading around under every set of trousers, which is just patently untrue.
But Mesmerized takes the suspension of disbelief standard in a couples porno one step further by incorporating hypnotherapy as an answer to Albert’s unrequited love. A shrink not only mesmerizes his object of desire, Hannah, into falling for him after ten years of staunchly platonic emotional abuse, but she does it with a Labyrinth-style crystal ball, without informing her patient about what she’s doing or explaining the possible consequences of her action to either stalker or stalkee. Those consequences? The hypnotism is irreversible. When Albert realizes, “Hannah’s a bad person who doesn’t deserve me” — a really remarkable sentiment for a straight man to have in a porno, where men are supposed to be emotionless penises alone — it’s too late. So to fix the problem, they just hypnotize Albert back into love with Hannah, and then send them on their way home to have great sex. All is well.
…so… well, now that I think about it, if your kid gets his hands on this movie and actually swallows all this crap about hypnotism and huge cocks and massive mammaries and mind control… Well, that kid is a moron and probably deserves to be misled. Also, kid is probably just going to jerk off to the movie and never consider the serious psychological implications.
And, now that I’ve thought about that, I’ve realized that I’ve been thinking WAY TOO MUCH about all of this. So now I’m going to go masturbate. Ciao!
—Miss Lagsalot