Dark Angels (Digital Sin) Review

Reviewed by astroknight  on  7/7/2002

Running Time: 118 min.

Production Date: 9 / 10 / 2000

Director: Nic Andrews

Cast: Sydnee Steele, Jewel DeNyle, Ginger Paige, April, McKayla, Phylisha Ryder, Dillion Day, VooDoo, Mike Horner, Mickey G., and Erik Everhard in sexual roles and Kelsey, Evan Stone, George Kaplan, and many others in non-sex roles

Initial Expectations: I’ve heard great things about this feature, and am expecting a great DVD to go along with it.

Initial Reaction: It’s a great movie done into an amazing DVD!

Who Should Watch It : Anybody who wants a well done movie to go along with their porn or something a little on the dark side.

Who Should Avoid It: Anybody looking for extremely nasty sex with very dark porn

Audio /Video Quality: The audio is extremely clear and perhaps the best I’ve heard so far. The video stands right alongside it. It’s very clear and has some well placed darkness that helps establish the mood rather than make the feature feel like it had the budget just large enough to pick up a dozen donuts from the day-old outlet.

Music: Derik Andrews & Inversion 89 provide the music, and do a great job with it. It’s a techno style and normally a little on the loud side. It fits the feature extremely well and if you like it, you have the option of listening to just it on an audio track with just the music.

Menus: The menus are nicely animated and fit the feature to a tee.

The Feature: When Jewel De’Nyle runs out of gas on her way home one night she finds out why men keep telling women to pay attention to the gauges on their car. Vampires are out there. She witnesses vampire Queen Sydnee Steele having a late night snack and runs to the cops. She tells her unbelievable story to detective Dillion Day, who finds her story a bit hard to swallow. He still believes Jewel’s in a bit of danger and stakes out her house to try and figure out what’s going on. Unfortunately, Sydnee doesn’t have to use the front door and gets in to turn Jewel into one of them. Much to her surprise, even after turned Jewel doesn’t want to be one of them and set out to bring them down with human Dillion as the only person who might be able to help her.

Ginger Paige starts things out with Voodoo in a bathroom stall at a rave. She sucks his cock before stripping down to let him eat and rim her from behind. They move on through a big of doggie style and reverse cowgirl before Voodoo pops on her butt. It’s an extremely hot scene with great chemistry and aggressive energy. It’s a perfect scene to start things out with, and ends perfectly with Ginger feeding on Voodoo.

Sydnee Steele lets horny Mike Horner pick her up and drive them to a secluded spot for the second scene. She warms him up orally before bending over the seat in the car for Mike to eat her out. They keep things going with some missionary work and doggie action before Mike pops on Sydnee’s back. It’s a very hot and energetic scene that once again is brought to a close with a feeding frenzy. I was really amazed at the positions Sydnee could get into in the car. If parents watch this scene they might be relieved when guys pick up their daughters in vans rather than cars like this.

Next up Sydnee Steele visits Jewel De’Nyle at night. Sydnee clearly starts out in control and looks menacing in her fetishwear while Jewel looks fairly innocent. Sydnee eats Jewel’s pussy and then sits on her face. She moves so Jewel can have a little lunch at the Y before turning things around so she can finger Jewel’s pussy and ass and give her ass a spanking. It’s a hot scene that nicely transitions from soft to nasty with quite a bit of trash talking.

Mickey G. gets a bit of a surprise when he tries to warm up Jewel De’Nyle in the morgue. He eats her pussy before getting an amazing looking hummer from Jewel. They work through doggie, cowgirl, and ironically, missionary before Mickey pops on Jewel’s stomach. Throughout most of the scene Sydnee watches and touches herself gently. It’s a hot scene with a very dark edge and feel to it.

After getting home Jewel gets used to the changes that have occurred in her body in the traditional way, masturbation. She touches herself as she makes her way around her bedroom. It’s a very short sequence that’s done fairly artistically with many cuts and angle changes.

Erik Everhard and Ginger Paige take part in a ceremony involving feeding on virgins April and McKayla. Surprisingly, Erik works on Erik while Ginger takes McKayla throughout the entire scene rather than switching back and forth quite a bit. As Erik and Ginger work on their prey, Evan Stone and a few of the other vampires walk around and mess with them a little. Evan really shines here, but the others do a fine job also. April finishes the scene taking a facial from Erik, and the lesbian side also comes to a complete feeling ending, which once again shows Nic Andrews’ excellence as a director.

Finally, Dillion Day takes on Phylisha Ryder in a back alley. Phylisha quickly goes from sucking Dillion’s dong to taking it in her pussy from behind. They also work in a little standing missionary before Phylisha makes Dillion’s day taking his guy goo on her face. It’s a hot scene with great energy. Phylisha is nicely vocal here and really provides some great drive to the scene. There’s also some great effects as her fangs come out in the middle of Dillion fucking her.

Dark Angels is an amazing feature. The non-sex sequences are extremely well done and good enough that they could stand on their own without the sex scenes. No small part of this is due to the great job that the entire cast did with it. There isn’t a single weak link in the chain, and nobody that goes way over the top with their role either. The non-sex sequences are also enhanced by some well done special effects and a bit of bloodshed. That’s right true believers, it’s a porno about vampires that actually shows them feeding and getting bloody messy. The sex is just as well done, and has a dark primal feel to it. Ginger Paige and Voodoo might have the best scene in the movie, and if not, provide such a great start that it might have shocked me enough that I couldn’t find any real complaint about any of the other scenes. Jewel De’Nyle is also excellent, and I think turned in the best all around performance I’ve seen from her. Dark Angels is one of the best adult movies I’ve seen.

For another perspective on this DVD, please check out AlexGogol’s review.

Extras: Digital Sin has packed two DVDs here, and didn’t try to cop out by putting just the feature on the first DVD. The first DVD also contains the script to the feature along with the ability to jump directly from the script to the scene in the movie.

The first DVD also contains two commentaries, both of which are led by Nic Andrews. Sydnee Steele, Dillion Day, Erik Everhard, and Kelsey join Nic for the first commentary. They talk about the people in the movie, and pretty much whatever comes to mind for them. The second commentary has Evan Stone and the production and special makeup effects crew joining Nic. Not surprisingly, Evan provides quite a bit of humor, but this commentary mostly focuses on the technical aspects of the movie. Both commentaries are interesting and fun to listen to, and don’t seem to include a ton of the same information.

The second DVD starts off with trailers from My Plaything: Jenna Jameson, My Plaything: Jewel De’Nyle, My Plaything: Tera Patrick, My Plaything: Silvia Saint, My Plaything: Stacy Valentine, Whispers, Naughty College School Girls 10, North Pole 22, Intimate Expressions, and 4 Finger Club. It’s a very nice selection of trailers, and sadly, a much better and more current selection than is on the crappy B-side that Digital Sin is including on their DVDs roughly a year later than when Dark Angels was released.

The Press Room includes magazine layouts, movie reviews, related articles, and nominations and rewards for Dark Angels. The photo gallery contains roughly 175 photos including about 27 behind the scenes photos, about 95 production photos, and about 50 makeup effects photos. They’re mostly the snapshot style, but all of them look great.

Five featurettes are also included that run about fifty five minutes total. Going Batty is a blooper reel that’s a little shy of eight minutes. It’s mostly flubbed lines, but it also shows just how scary Evan Stone can be. It’s a pretty decent blooper reel, and worth checking out just to see how scary Evan was. Making of a Nightmare runs a little over thirteen and a half minutes and is a pretty standard behind the scenes featurette. It includes a few short interviews and shows many of the scenes being shot. Building the Perfect Beast runs about sixteen and a half minutes and revolves around the creation of the bat suit. It’s led by Mike del Rossa who explains how the suit was made between and over cuts of the suit being made and tested. Raising the Stakes is a thirteen minute visual effects reel with commentary by Nic Andrews. Nic explains how the bathroom sequence, several of the deaths, and Dillion’s fall were done while showing them as a kind of step by step process. Finally, there’s Evan Stone’s Loop Session which lasts about four minutes. Evan had to go in and do a voice over for a line during his fight with Dillion in the movie. It’s Evan Stone, which should explain everything. It’s a great bundle of featurettes that covers almost everything about the movie except why porn stars aren’t shipped out to reviewers to feed them grapes, among other things, while they watch the movie.

Themes: Straight, rimming (male > female), lesbian, anal, spanking, masturbation, and group

Raincoat Factor: Medium

Overall: Currently, Dark Angels can be found online for between $20 and $30 with most stores offering it near the lower end. At this price it’s a steal. The movie and transfer is amazing and Digital Sin packed the 2 disc set with extras.

Note to Digital Sin: Wow! This is one of the best DVDs I’ve seen in a long time. It was also great to see that you didn’t include your standard B-side of extras.

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

Other reviews by Astroknight