Midsummer Night's Cream, A Review

Running Time: 89 min.

Production Date: 23 March 2000

Director: Stuart Canterbury, who also adapted the story to it’s current form

Cast: Sydnee Steele, Nina Hartley, Shay Sweet, Ava Vincent, Cheyenne Silver, McKayla, Amber Michaels, Ginger Paige, Heather Lyn, Nakita Kash, Evan Stone, Michael J. Cox, Kyle Stone, and Nick East

Initial Expectations: I enjoy Stuart Canterbury’s films, and he struck me as a great person to do a Shakespearean porn movie. Adam & Eve can be a mixed bag on their DVDs, but this appeared to be well done.

Initial Reaction: A Midsummer’s Night Cream is a very well done Shakespearian porno. There are a few faults, but they’re fairly minor. Adam & Eve really put a lot of effort into the extras on this DVD, and I think their effort payed off.

Audio /Video Quality: As usual with Stuart Canterbury, A Midsummer’s Night Cream is shot on film, so there’s some grain issues. If you want a crystal clear picture, it isn’t here. Personally, I think that the grain can sometimes add to the artistic feel of a movie, but I didn’t feel that so much here as in other films (although I admit that I was in kind of a weird mood while watching this). The grainy picture to me was the biggest problem with this DVD. There’s also one spot where the film appeared to slip during the transfer, as you see the frame move down. It’s something that should be fixed for future releases. The audio is blended great. It’s very clear and the balance between everything is excellent. The only complaint I have on the audio is one spot where it was obviously dubbed.

Music: The music is very soft and tender. It fits the scenes very well. The music is also very well balanced with the rest of the audio.

Review: I suppose it’s happened to everybody who’s watched one of Kenneth Branagh’s Shakespearean movies. At one point, you finally wonder what would happen if he did porn? Okay, maybe not everybody, but Kenneth Branagh doing a porno is exactly what A Midsummer Night’s Cream struck me as when I watched it. The sets are detailed and very well done. The costumes are extremely detailed and of the same quality as the set. The cast is gorgeous. From what I’ve heard from others on Dream Quest , Adam & Eve have put about the same effort into the production values here as Wicked did with Dream Quest . Unfortunately, I haven’t seen Dream Quest yet, so I can’t make any real comparisons to it. Stuart Canterbury has very good artistic vision for porn, and I think that Adam & Eve made a great choice having him direct.

A Midsummer Night’s Cream follows the main ideas used in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Unlike Shakespeare’s version, Canterbury’s version starts with the five fairies Peaseblossom, Moth, Petal, Cobweb, and Mustardseed (Shay, Cheyenne, Nakita, Ginger, and Amber, respectively) enjoying the pleasures of each other’s flesh as Nina Hartley, their Queen Titania, watches them. Each girl’s costume is somehow related to their name. This is a very tastefully done scene that, even though it’s a five girl orgy, still remains couple friendly. As such, I was a little disappointed as I’ve seen many of the girls in much nastier action and was hoping for a little of that to come out. It never does, and as such remains very couples friendly. Although I was a little disappointed, it fit the mood and playfulness of the movie very well. King Oberon (Evan Stone) appears and stops the faerie fun. Titania refuses to sleep with him since he ruined their fun, so afterwards Oberon sends Puck (McKayla) to fetch a special flower whose juice can make a person fall madly in love with the next thing they see when their eyes are coated with it. We see the fairies a little more throughout the movie as they play in the fields and meadows, but their roles are limited to the background of the movie.

Oberon then watches as Helena (Sydnee) chases after Demetrius (Nick East). Helena is madly in love with Demetrius, but he spurns her at every chance. Oberon is moved by Helena’s deep love for Demetrius, and has Puck go off to coat Demetrius’s eyes with the juice of the flower while he goes off with another one of the flowers to where Nina sleeps. Also in the forest are Lysander (Michael J. Cox) and Hermia (Ava Vincent). Both are deeply in love with each other and are lost in the forest. They decide to build a fire and spend the night in a clearing. Of course they make mad, passionate love while Cheyenne watches them from the forest. I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of Ava. She’s one of the most beautiful new girls I’ve seen in porn in quite a while. She has a great body, good enthusiasm, and can act better than most.

Puck mistakenly thinks that Lysander is Demetrius and dusts his eyes shortly before Helena comes by. Lysander falls madly in love with Helena upon seeing her, and spurns Hermia, his true love. Helena fears that Lysander is only acting this way to mock her love of Demetrius.

Meanwhile, Bottom (Kyle Stone) is also lost in the woods and stumbles upon the sleeping Titania. Puck watches from the woods and uses magic to turn Bottom into an ass. Once again, the costumes and makeup people do a great job rather than just substituting Ed Powers for Kyle Stone. His braying wakes Titania who falls in love with him on the spot with her flower-juice coated eyes. At least I think it was due to the flower juice. If Bottom’s nether regions were also turned to that of an ass, it may be as far as Titania’s eyes reached before falling in love with him and lusting after him. This scene lacked a little. The bestiality was done very tactfully, as it was hard to see Bottom being converted to a full ass rather than something similar to one of the boys in Disney’s Pinocchio . I think the scene lacked a little mostly due to the lack of eye contact. Nina barely looked at Kyle throughout the entire scene. This really brought down the chemistry of the scene. As Bottom and Titania make love on Titania’s bed, Puck watches and enchants his crotch to that of a woman so to better pleasure himself? Puck’s enchantment gave him kind of a she-male feel, as Puck remained bearded with a lot of hair on his chest. It might not have come off as well had Puck been played by someone other than McKayla, who’s another of my favorite newer starlets. Thankfully, after this scene she reverts to her womanly form for the rest of the movie.

The faerie Pussywillow (Heather) meets Oberon in the forest. She is slightly afraid, but Oberon lusts after her and streaks her eyes with his flower. I think Evan is currently one of the best male leads in the adult films and this scene is no exception for him. He and Heather do a very good job together in this scene and it’s the only scene to have anal sex.

Puck returns to inform Oberon about Titania just after Demetrius and Hermia come by with Hermia thinking Demetrius may have done something foul to Lysander. Of course, this is a couples film and we thankfully don’t see anything foul happening between Lysander and Demetrius. Besides, Lysander still only has eyes for Helena. Oberon informs Puck on his / her screw up. Puck enchants Demetrius so that he will fall in love with Helena, who walks by with Lysander as soon as he wakes. Of course this causes problems as Lysander is still enchanted to love Helena. The guys first try sharing Helena. Once again, the couples mood is kept and the scene doesn’t include a double penetration or even anal sex. This surprised me as Sydnee is well known to be a fan of backdoor pleasure.

Seeing the problems caused when Hermia finds Lysander fighting over Helena with Demetrius, Oberon orders Puck to lead them all astray in the forest. Lysander is led to where he can have a crushed herb put in his eyes which make everything that happened seem as if it were a dream that he ever loved Helena. Demetrius and Helena are still left to be in love, as Oberon is still moved by Helena’s love for Demetrius. Oberon also undoes the enchantments surrounding Bottom and Titania, leaving Bottom to go on through the forest.

Keeping with being a couples film, Oberon and Titania finally make love. This is one of the best scenes in the movie and Evan and Nina have great chemistry together. It seems fairly restrained considering the people involved, but it’s a nice scene to end the movie with. Keeping with the Shakespearean mold, Puck of course, gets the final words.

As a couples film, A Midsummer Night’s Cream does very well, especially with the cast involved. I expected a lot more when I watched it, but I had very high expectations. It seemed a little hollow to what I was expecting. Viewing it as a couples film, it’s very well done and I think a lot of people are going to compare it with Dream Quest. This is definitely one of Adam & Eve’s best films and they have done an amazing job with the DVD as a whole. Anyone looking for something outside the normal porno written by a couple of monkeys should consider this. More than anything, this should be strongly considered as something softer to watch on a quiet night with a loved one and a bottle of wine.

Extras: Where to begin? Adam & Eve put a lot of effort into the extras on this DVD. There is a trailer for the movie, slide show, and bios, similar to almost every other half-way decent release out there. There’s also a twelve minute behind the scenes featurette (filmed by Toni English aka Paul Thomas) that’s pretty good. If you’re a fan of either Nina or Evan, you must watch it as most of it is the two of them (more Nina than Evan). Nina really comes out as the mother of all porn stars as there’s several cuts of her sitting and talking with several of the younger porn stars sitting around and listening wide eyed to whatever she’s saying. I couldn’t help but think “She really needs to do a sexual education series on video and DVD”. Then I remembered, she did! Expanding on the Hot Shot option that Adam & Eve started doing this year, you also have the option to watch only the sex in the movie. It’s kind of interesting because if you do you can see how much of the movie is just sex (62 min). You can also hit the enter button on your remote and skip to the cum shot. It’s a lot nicer than having the icon on screen throughout the movie.

Finally, there’s hidden features. To add to the dream theme of the movie, as you move around in the menus, if you check on the sides you sometimes find additional features. It’s a fairly easy Easter Egg hunt (I think) that adds some more to the movie. My only complaint about this is that it seems to take up a lot of space because every screen takes forever to load. Okay, maybe eight seconds isn’t forever, but it sure seems like it with the speed of everything else on DVD. If you’re extremely impatient, you may be upset because you have to hunt for most of the extra features and they do take time to load. Hopefully the speed problem is just due to my machine.

Themes: Straight, lesbian, group, anal, and spanking

Raincoat Factor: Medium to low. Although the sex is very good, I can’t see using this as a spank film. If don’t feel like being burdened with a plot, you can watch the sex scenes only with the push of a button.

Overall: If you’re looking for something different, you might want to check out A Midsummer’s Night Cream . It’s fairly artistic and very couples friendly (although it does have a group lesbian scene and one anal scene). The audio is very good but the picture is grainy due to being shot on film. The extras are amazing. Adam & Eve have definitely given the consumer more bang for their buck.

Note to Adam & Eve: You’ve put together a very good DVD here. The hot shot feature is blended in great (thank you for not putting the icon on screen throughout the movie) as well as the sex scenes only option. It’s great to see a studio putting so much effort into trying to keep everybody happy.

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