Carnal Witness Review

Running Time: 99 min.

Production Date: 11/ 30 / 1998

Director: Bud Lee

Cast: Cheyenne Silver, Nina Hartley, T. J. Hart, Allysin Chaynes, Chloe, Randy Spears, Chris Cannon and Herschel Savage

Initial Expectations: I haven’t heard anything about Carnal Witness , but I do have fair to high hopes due to some of Adam & Eve’s recent releases.

Initial Reaction: Carnal Witness has perhaps the best plot I’ve seen in an adult film. The sex was also a little above average. This is a great movie!

Audio /Video Quality: The audio is generally pretty good. It’s a little uneven here and there, but nothing that interferes with the movie too much. The dialogue is all easily understood. The video is about average. Most of the picture is slightly grainy. A lot of the scenes take place in fairly dark places, which doesn’t help things much. When you consider some of the locations, the video seems a lot better than what it first appears.

Music: The music is excellent and extremely varied. It’s very rare to find any typical porno music in Carnal Witness . It starts out very suspenseful, building the mood for the entire movie, and then changes to almost everything across the board, including classical.

Review: Carnal Witness is one of the select few adult films that could stand on its own if the sex was cut out. I admit that it wouldn’t be nearly as good, since almost everybody watches adult films for the sex, but it would still be watchable. It has one of the best done plots I’ve seen in an adult movie. Sadly, the sex isn’t quite as good as the plot, but it also is still above average.

Carnal Witness revolves around Emily, played by Cheyenne Silver with her usual reality, cuteness, and emotion, who has just moved into a new apartment. She is extremely jumpy and it appears that she’s moved due to something in her past. Of course her neighbor, Nina Hartley, wants to find out all about her, but Cheyenne changes the subject whenever Nina tries to get her to talk about herself. When Cheyenne finally does talk to her, it’s for advice (as Nina is an advice columnist) as she’s being plagued by sexual dreams. Lately it seems like most movies would use this as an excuse to turn Carnal Witness into a lame porno with the entire movie being made up of the dreams and Cheyenne simply connecting them by getting into and out of bed between stories. Carnal Witness, however, uses the sex to build the plot, as Nina recognizes some of the things in Cheyenne’s dreams, such as Chris Cannon, who appears in all of the dreams. I hate to go into the plot any deeper than this as there are several nice plot twists that change things around quite a bit. Yes, twists in a porno that happen in the plot rather than just as a twist of the wrist.

The sex fits Cheyenne’s character, which the movie revolves around. She’s a normal person, just one plagued by sexual dreams, which of course can get a little wilder. The sex fitting the normalness of Cheyenne’s character makes the movie very couples friendly and a good movie for newbies as well. Yes, there is a little rougher sex and some anal, but most of that is in Chloe’s scene with Chris Cannon and Herschel Savage. This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anybody who’s seen Chloe before. Surprisingly, Chloe is one of the few people in the cast who is only in one scene. T. J. Hart appears both with Chris Cannon and Herschel Savage. Nina gets to enjoy both Chris Cannon and Allysin Chaynes as well as having Cheyenne Silver all to herself. Cheyenne also gets to take care of Randy Spears. It’s a nice mix of people and the multiple scenes show off many of the talents of the cast.

The lighting for the sex is also very well done and shows attention to some of the little details. I have to admit that I didn’t like it at first. Most of the sex takes place in Cheyenne’s dreams, and it’s a little dark. Then I noticed that the few scenes that take place in the real world, such as Nina and Cheyenne’s afternoon snacking on each other on the kitchen counter, were much brighter. The dream sex scenes appear to have been made slightly darker on purpose to set them apart from the real world scenes. Although it first seems to be poor production values, the consistency of the lower lighting made me realize otherwise.

Of course, Carnal Witness does have its faults. During Cheyenne and Nina’s kitchen scene, one of the cameramen gets a little too close during filming. We see his camera start to poke in on the side of the screen. This seems a little careless as I would think that his footage could be used for a few seconds to edit out his presence. Some of the sex scenes also seem a little weak in places. Nina and Cheyenne’s scene especially seemed a little short. Another minute or two would have been really nice as they seemed into each other. Allysin could have also been used a little more in her scene with Nina and Chris. This is a fairly minor complaint as I think that it was an average quality scene. It just seems strange for this good of a plot to only have slightly above average sex, but it is consistent throughout the movie. Although it’s only slightly above average sex, don’t let that stop you from watching Carnal Witness .

Extras: Trailers, photo gallery, bios, internet access, and phone sex are all included on the Carnal Witness DVD. The photo gallery is manual and contains twenty pictures. They’re all framed and very good quality. The bios cover Cheyenne Silver, Nina Hartley, Chloe, and Herschel Savage. They’re okay, but they’re nothing special. The trailers are for Caribbean Undercover, Devoured, Perfectly Flawless, Taboo of Tarot, and The Collector .

Themes: Straight, voyeurism, toe-ing, group, lesbian, rimming (female > female), spanking, masturbation, anal, and spitting

Raincoat Factor: Medium

Overall: Currently Carnal Witness can be found online for between $15 and $23. Only two stores are offering it for under $20, but some of the cheaper stores have yet to offer it. $15 is a great buy for a movie this good. The transfer is fairly average and there isn’t anything beyond your standard extras, but it’s got one of the best plots I’ve seen in an adult movie. The sex is only slightly above average, so if you’re think about this just for the sex, rent it instead of buying it. Everybody else should place their orders as soon as possible.

Note to Adam & Eve: If the writer of Carnal Witness’s script is still around, sign them to a big contract now! Although the sex was only a little above average here, the plot was one of the best I’ve ever seen in an adult film. I really wish the transfer and extras would have been better because I really wanted to give this one a 5.

If you have any questions or comments, please e- mail me .