William Higgins' porn generally isn't known for its elaborate plotting, but even he pushes the limit in MALIBU DAYS, BIG BEAR NIGHTS, a film with a great title but not that much backing it up.
Bare bones set-up finds a quartet of college guys (Adam Stewart, Alan Howell, Kurt Franklin and Joel Allen - cuties all) heading up to a cabin at California's Big Bear Lake for a bit of R&R. Settling in, one of the guys finds an unmarked video in the closet and pops it in for the crowd, hoping it's a porno. That's what they get, but as one piquedly huffs, "It's all guys!" Nevertheless, they make the most of it and settle in for five scenes, growing progressively more aroused. You can imagine how things end!
The title sets up a great contrast, pitting California's sunny beaches against its snowy mountains, but the film barely takes advantage of it. Apparently "Malibu Days" are broad enough to encompass action pretty much anywhere (a number of interior scenes in no way have to be in Malibu, nor do they involve beaches or surfers), and the Big Bear stuff only accounts for the intro and last scene. The result is exactly the kind of pseudo-loop-carrier the set-up promises: a bunch of discordant - and discordantly erotic - scenes strung together with little rhyme or reason.
Film's biggest honors go to Mark Scott Solo (aka Scott Nichols), a bleach-blond cutie with a shoulder tattoo who's the epitome of a SoCal heartbreaker. He gets the two sequences up front, first tag-teaming J. W. King with Brad Scott in lieu of doing $25 in chores, then coming back from a surfing trip and stripping out of his wetsuit with Jamie Wingo, before the two join friends Davin McNeil and Peter Geary for a four-way living room orgy. Solo is hot in both scenes, even while stuck with guys who are only his match about half the time, but the film is hampered by some shoddy lighting during the indoor parts - you can see a spotlight moving around desperately trying to illuminate things. Subsequent pairings are hit or miss, with a tearaway jeans number featuring Nick Rodgers and Giorgio Canali that did little for me (neither is really in the twinky Higgins mold), though a follow-up with Shawn Michaels and Davin McNeil brings the heat. A closing sequence in a hot tub with Mickey O'Toole and Kevin Carey should be hot (both guys are sexy), but feels dashed-off, rushed through like an afterthought as the film is already past the 90-minute mark.
This highlights the primary problem with MALIBU, which is that it just keeps going and going. The film takes north of 15 minutes to get to its first sex scene, with endless footage of the surfers and college guys wandering around eating up time. When the action starts, in the Higgins style, it's all a bit overlong, until the film suddenly starts rushing toward the end. By the time it gets to its climactic showdown, it's exhausted the viewer's patience with one too many video segments, and despite the pace picking up considerably during the cabin orgy and all the boys bringing a marked level of enthusiasm, the film's overall length prevents its climax from being the firecracker of a closer the movie needed. Knowing a good thing when he sees one, Higgins still throws in a weird coda after "The End," a quick three-minute scene with Solo showing off how he may well have earned his name.
In contrast to a film like CALIFORNIA SUMMER, all of whose scenes are also long but compensate via impressive sexual heat that usually involves multiple climaxes, MALIBU consistently feels like it's struggling to find its footing, as though it threw a gauntlet for itself ("This film should be two hours!") with no idea why. The result is frustrating and arousing in equal measure, full of many good points that would nevertheless shine all the more brightly with a bit of pruning.
Bare bones set-up finds a quartet of college guys (Adam Stewart, Alan Howell, Kurt Franklin and Joel Allen - cuties all) heading up to a cabin at California's Big Bear Lake for a bit of R&R. Settling in, one of the guys finds an unmarked video in the closet and pops it in for the crowd, hoping it's a porno. That's what they get, but as one piquedly huffs, "It's all guys!" Nevertheless, they make the most of it and settle in for five scenes, growing progressively more aroused. You can imagine how things end!
The title sets up a great contrast, pitting California's sunny beaches against its snowy mountains, but the film barely takes advantage of it. Apparently "Malibu Days" are broad enough to encompass action pretty much anywhere (a number of interior scenes in no way have to be in Malibu, nor do they involve beaches or surfers), and the Big Bear stuff only accounts for the intro and last scene. The result is exactly the kind of pseudo-loop-carrier the set-up promises: a bunch of discordant - and discordantly erotic - scenes strung together with little rhyme or reason.
Film's biggest honors go to Mark Scott Solo (aka Scott Nichols), a bleach-blond cutie with a shoulder tattoo who's the epitome of a SoCal heartbreaker. He gets the two sequences up front, first tag-teaming J. W. King with Brad Scott in lieu of doing $25 in chores, then coming back from a surfing trip and stripping out of his wetsuit with Jamie Wingo, before the two join friends Davin McNeil and Peter Geary for a four-way living room orgy. Solo is hot in both scenes, even while stuck with guys who are only his match about half the time, but the film is hampered by some shoddy lighting during the indoor parts - you can see a spotlight moving around desperately trying to illuminate things. Subsequent pairings are hit or miss, with a tearaway jeans number featuring Nick Rodgers and Giorgio Canali that did little for me (neither is really in the twinky Higgins mold), though a follow-up with Shawn Michaels and Davin McNeil brings the heat. A closing sequence in a hot tub with Mickey O'Toole and Kevin Carey should be hot (both guys are sexy), but feels dashed-off, rushed through like an afterthought as the film is already past the 90-minute mark.
This highlights the primary problem with MALIBU, which is that it just keeps going and going. The film takes north of 15 minutes to get to its first sex scene, with endless footage of the surfers and college guys wandering around eating up time. When the action starts, in the Higgins style, it's all a bit overlong, until the film suddenly starts rushing toward the end. By the time it gets to its climactic showdown, it's exhausted the viewer's patience with one too many video segments, and despite the pace picking up considerably during the cabin orgy and all the boys bringing a marked level of enthusiasm, the film's overall length prevents its climax from being the firecracker of a closer the movie needed. Knowing a good thing when he sees one, Higgins still throws in a weird coda after "The End," a quick three-minute scene with Solo showing off how he may well have earned his name.
In contrast to a film like CALIFORNIA SUMMER, all of whose scenes are also long but compensate via impressive sexual heat that usually involves multiple climaxes, MALIBU consistently feels like it's struggling to find its footing, as though it threw a gauntlet for itself ("This film should be two hours!") with no idea why. The result is frustrating and arousing in equal measure, full of many good points that would nevertheless shine all the more brightly with a bit of pruning.