I really enjoyed James Avalon's "The Neighbors", a sexy and suspenseful Sweet Sinner feature quite unlike the same writer-director's 2007 video "The Neighbors"' that he made in a light-hearted mode for Penthouse Video.
The only drawback, and it isn't fatal, is the trick ending, followed by that dreaded card "To Be Continued", a practice I wish had gone out of business with the old Saturday afternoon serials. This joins the rank of many unfinished Sweet Sinner projects (see for example Nica Noelle's "Family Secrets" and many a "Part 1" video for which no Part 2 exists). Fortunately, Avalon has tied up the most important story elements by the final reel, so the viewer is left -as in a good movie - thinking about what happens next.
(Parenthetically on this point, I sort of intentionally watched Bluebird Films' "Macbeth Act I" right after "Neighbors" and that overly ambitious British porn project pulled the plug with perhaps 5 hours of concluding material (Acts II & III) permanently left on the shelf. Incompetence didn't even consider producing Act IV at all when they shot the thing 5 years ago.)
Rachel and Frank (Lily Carter and Richie DeVille) are young neighbors who move in next door to married couple (May-December division) Jessica and Dick (Jessie Andrews and Dale Dabone). In this 4-character chamber drama, the Sweet Sinner fan already knows, unless lesbo action is in the offing, that the 4 sex scenes cover the 4 acceptable heterosexual combinations of the players, and that's what happens.
Well-acted by the entire cast, the key twists involve the Act II revelation that Dick and Rachel have a history together. This takes the story into neo-film noir territory, as Dick's criminal past (apparently a grifter of sorts in league with Rachel) comes back to haunt him - a serious theme most recently epitomized in popular culture by Jon Hamm's dualistic role in TV's classic "Madmen".
Rachel turns out to be a summer-stock version in waiting of Glenn Close's classic "Fatal Attraction" clinging character, a prospect that Avalon dangles in front of the viewer early in the piece but fortunately does not overdo -in fact he's quite subtle compared to the memorable but definitely hokey antics of director Adrian Lyne in the original (no dead rabbits or other ultra-violence here). But Lily Carter in the Rachel role does have her chilling moments, especially a crucial scene where she keeps calling our hero "Dick" with a sarcastic tone at the end of each sentence, emphasizing that his current identity is a phony.
I won't spoil the complications beyond those basics, but suffice it to say that all four protagonists have hot sex before the final fadeout, in which their future is decidedly left up in the air. My own theory as to why the promised Part 2 never happened (NOTE: Sweet Sinner's released "The Neighbors: Volume 2" has an all-new cast and bears no relation to this initial offering) is a marketing decision: Carter, Andrews, Dabone and especially young DeVille are not big names and I suspect sales and/or download figures for this particular title were sub-par. But it is a worthwhile entry nonetheless - a sleeper of sorts. I've seen several of DeVille's videos recently, directed by both Avalon and his predecessor Nica Noelle, and he's an interesting "young rebel" personality but certainly never made the big time or built a fan-base like a peer of his James Deen (same age) did.
The only drawback, and it isn't fatal, is the trick ending, followed by that dreaded card "To Be Continued", a practice I wish had gone out of business with the old Saturday afternoon serials. This joins the rank of many unfinished Sweet Sinner projects (see for example Nica Noelle's "Family Secrets" and many a "Part 1" video for which no Part 2 exists). Fortunately, Avalon has tied up the most important story elements by the final reel, so the viewer is left -as in a good movie - thinking about what happens next.
(Parenthetically on this point, I sort of intentionally watched Bluebird Films' "Macbeth Act I" right after "Neighbors" and that overly ambitious British porn project pulled the plug with perhaps 5 hours of concluding material (Acts II & III) permanently left on the shelf. Incompetence didn't even consider producing Act IV at all when they shot the thing 5 years ago.)
Rachel and Frank (Lily Carter and Richie DeVille) are young neighbors who move in next door to married couple (May-December division) Jessica and Dick (Jessie Andrews and Dale Dabone). In this 4-character chamber drama, the Sweet Sinner fan already knows, unless lesbo action is in the offing, that the 4 sex scenes cover the 4 acceptable heterosexual combinations of the players, and that's what happens.
Well-acted by the entire cast, the key twists involve the Act II revelation that Dick and Rachel have a history together. This takes the story into neo-film noir territory, as Dick's criminal past (apparently a grifter of sorts in league with Rachel) comes back to haunt him - a serious theme most recently epitomized in popular culture by Jon Hamm's dualistic role in TV's classic "Madmen".
Rachel turns out to be a summer-stock version in waiting of Glenn Close's classic "Fatal Attraction" clinging character, a prospect that Avalon dangles in front of the viewer early in the piece but fortunately does not overdo -in fact he's quite subtle compared to the memorable but definitely hokey antics of director Adrian Lyne in the original (no dead rabbits or other ultra-violence here). But Lily Carter in the Rachel role does have her chilling moments, especially a crucial scene where she keeps calling our hero "Dick" with a sarcastic tone at the end of each sentence, emphasizing that his current identity is a phony.
I won't spoil the complications beyond those basics, but suffice it to say that all four protagonists have hot sex before the final fadeout, in which their future is decidedly left up in the air. My own theory as to why the promised Part 2 never happened (NOTE: Sweet Sinner's released "The Neighbors: Volume 2" has an all-new cast and bears no relation to this initial offering) is a marketing decision: Carter, Andrews, Dabone and especially young DeVille are not big names and I suspect sales and/or download figures for this particular title were sub-par. But it is a worthwhile entry nonetheless - a sleeper of sorts. I've seen several of DeVille's videos recently, directed by both Avalon and his predecessor Nica Noelle, and he's an interesting "young rebel" personality but certainly never made the big time or built a fan-base like a peer of his James Deen (same age) did.