A tour de force performance by Skin Diamond redeems B. Skow's CONTROL, a failed attempt to criticize, ever so gingerly, the trendy BDSM ethos. The video founders on a rather juvenile approach to plot twists. I'm still waiting for a gutsy expose of the obvious contradictions of the bondage/submissive lifestyle.
Skow obviously fancies himself as an "outlaw" pornographer, challenging accepted norms and clichés of the Adult genre. But CONTROL is as cornball as any mainstream studio formula picture, despite its outré subject matter and emphasis on black humor.
Skin stars as a self-appointed slave, who entrances Scott Lyons (an unappealing performer whose flat, unprofessional performance drags down the movie) and becomes his unpaid household slave. Her reasoning, namely that the submissive like herself is actually in control, is absurd and led me to believe that Skow would be examining the entire topsy-turvy logic that propels cultists into BDSM, leather, fetish or any number of other "hip" lifestyles, none of which deserve the attention they get anymore than an addict of fly fishing or stamp collecting deserves.
Instead, Skin's delusional mentality is merely a cog for "biter bit" and other plot twist turnabouts that are as old as Elizabethan or Jacobean literature, hardly as hip as the film would pretend. Lyons breaks protocol by constantly nagging his slave to say "I love you" and form an emotional bond with him, so Skin rejects her master, enlists the aid of slightly retarded teen redhead neighbor Claire Robbins to become her assistant slave, and hopes to transfer her role with "Sir" to Claire. The switcheroos are extremely predictable and uninteresting, leading to a truly stupid finale "trick ending" that had me groaning well into the night.
That ending involves Claire's mom Darla Crane, a welcome sight cast as a stripper who Claire both hates and loves, and who has a quality sex scene with Alec Knight, picking on somebody his own age for a change, which features a fun shot of Darla's huge breasts squished against window glass right out of classic films like COOL HAND Luke and LITTLE MOTHER.
The fact that Skin is Black and Sir played by Lyons is white is glossed over here, since Skow relishes any breaking of taboos -in this case it takes awhile to get used to Skin relishing her status as slave 150 years after the end of the Civil War. Of course, she thinks being a slave is the greatest thing a person could ever achieve, and even in a suspense/switch context like this movie it remains difficult to identify with that mindset, basic to any card-carrying submissive out there.
Just to reemphasize my point, I collected stamps obsessively for many decades and would be hard-pressed to explain to a non-philatelist my obsession. Similarly, I still have a tactile attraction to my voluminous jazz LP collection -the pleasurable act of holding the 12-inch disks inexplicable to anyone who thinks the format is as dead as a dodo bird (aspiring deejays excluded from the discussion -they get it).
At any rate, Skow stumbles by having Claire proved "correct" in her self- realization as a sort of activist slave, while at film's end poor Skin has seemingly returned to a boring middle-class square existence as happily married woman after her fling at humiliation/abuse/rough sex/chain around neck behavior.
Typical of BDSM lite movies, the feature does not get into really extreme bondage or fetish content, and its small cast/claustrophobic approach also makes it quite specialized entertainment for mainstream porn addicts.
Skow obviously fancies himself as an "outlaw" pornographer, challenging accepted norms and clichés of the Adult genre. But CONTROL is as cornball as any mainstream studio formula picture, despite its outré subject matter and emphasis on black humor.
Skin stars as a self-appointed slave, who entrances Scott Lyons (an unappealing performer whose flat, unprofessional performance drags down the movie) and becomes his unpaid household slave. Her reasoning, namely that the submissive like herself is actually in control, is absurd and led me to believe that Skow would be examining the entire topsy-turvy logic that propels cultists into BDSM, leather, fetish or any number of other "hip" lifestyles, none of which deserve the attention they get anymore than an addict of fly fishing or stamp collecting deserves.
Instead, Skin's delusional mentality is merely a cog for "biter bit" and other plot twist turnabouts that are as old as Elizabethan or Jacobean literature, hardly as hip as the film would pretend. Lyons breaks protocol by constantly nagging his slave to say "I love you" and form an emotional bond with him, so Skin rejects her master, enlists the aid of slightly retarded teen redhead neighbor Claire Robbins to become her assistant slave, and hopes to transfer her role with "Sir" to Claire. The switcheroos are extremely predictable and uninteresting, leading to a truly stupid finale "trick ending" that had me groaning well into the night.
That ending involves Claire's mom Darla Crane, a welcome sight cast as a stripper who Claire both hates and loves, and who has a quality sex scene with Alec Knight, picking on somebody his own age for a change, which features a fun shot of Darla's huge breasts squished against window glass right out of classic films like COOL HAND Luke and LITTLE MOTHER.
The fact that Skin is Black and Sir played by Lyons is white is glossed over here, since Skow relishes any breaking of taboos -in this case it takes awhile to get used to Skin relishing her status as slave 150 years after the end of the Civil War. Of course, she thinks being a slave is the greatest thing a person could ever achieve, and even in a suspense/switch context like this movie it remains difficult to identify with that mindset, basic to any card-carrying submissive out there.
Just to reemphasize my point, I collected stamps obsessively for many decades and would be hard-pressed to explain to a non-philatelist my obsession. Similarly, I still have a tactile attraction to my voluminous jazz LP collection -the pleasurable act of holding the 12-inch disks inexplicable to anyone who thinks the format is as dead as a dodo bird (aspiring deejays excluded from the discussion -they get it).
At any rate, Skow stumbles by having Claire proved "correct" in her self- realization as a sort of activist slave, while at film's end poor Skin has seemingly returned to a boring middle-class square existence as happily married woman after her fling at humiliation/abuse/rough sex/chain around neck behavior.
Typical of BDSM lite movies, the feature does not get into really extreme bondage or fetish content, and its small cast/claustrophobic approach also makes it quite specialized entertainment for mainstream porn addicts.