Night Trips 2 Review

Reviewed by Principal Skinner  on  8/11/2000

NIGHT TRIPS 2 is the sequel to the ground- breaking and break-through work from director Andrew Blake. Starring the incredible Tori Welles, NIGHT TRIPS featured beautiful women in highly-charged performances filmed gorgeously against a backdrop of dreamy, fantasy sequences. Although NIGHT TRIPS 2 was seen as the lesser sequel of the original, this movie remains one of my all time favorite pieces of erotica, due largely to the presence of star Paula Price and the beautiful Lauren Hall. Although this film merely continues the novelty of a very horny woman being studied for her very vivid wet dreams (via a monitor which displays her subconsious fantasies), NIGHT TRIPS 2 features an all-star cast and some of the best sex scenes I have ever witnessed. Long-time porn fans will recognize the early appearances of superstars like Racquel Darrian, Cameo, Nina Alexander and Heather Lere, and Tami Monroe appearing in vignettes which will burn in your memory.

Although there are many thematic vignettes in NIGHT TRIPS 2 --- each edited perfectly in maintaining the mood and pacing of the film --- a few stick out as being the most highly memorable. Paula Price, Heather Lere and Nina Alexander make up a visually stunning threesome as the they vamp it up by a swimming pool. Decked out in sunglasses and sexy bikinis which barely manage to cover their gorgeous, natural chests, each girl engages in plenty of deep tongue kissing and lusty pussy-eating with just enough toy play, even as they pose like fashion models. The camera roams lustfully over their bodies, and the bass heavy music, full of staccato rhythms and a rather catchy melody (believe it or not), is an inspired complement to the sexual proceedings. Of all the lesbian scenes I have ever witnessed on video (which is almost embarrasingly countless), this threesome is still one of my all time favorites.

Later on in the film, Racquel Darrian looks breathtaking in her straight scene with [who else?] long-time partner Derrick Lane. Once again, Andrew Blake aims his camera longingly and lovingly and her fantastic figure, beginning with her incredibly sexy legs and following up to her model-perfect face. When she gets bounced upon by her lucky sex partner, the director gives us every opportunity to stare at her awesome body, with her high heels suspended in the air and her body poised like a work of art. Even better, her scene ends with a fantastic cum facial, where Racquel never flinches from the down pout splashing all over her mouth.

Finally, Lauren Hall performs in two scenes, a threesome involving Bridgette Monroe and Randy Spears, then an ending girl-girl tryst with the smoldering Tami Monroe (no relation to Bridgette). Raven-haired, blue-eyed and very exotic looking, Lauren is magnetic in her menage a trois, clearly overshadowing Bridgette with her deep-throating technique, although watching the both of them French kiss with Randy's cock intermingled between their tongues was an equally awesome sight. In truth, Old Man West has been paired with Ms. Hall in so many of her past videos [like THE TEASE and the two-part TRICK TRACY series], that seeing his mug again can get awfully tiring. But Lauren and director Blake manage to make every sex scene seem fresh and inspired, especially when the camera perfectly captures the money shot which spills all over both girls' faces.

Finally, as a coda to the whole movie, Lauren meets with the incredibly sexy Tara Monroe for a satisfying sapphic finish. The contrast between glamorous blonde Tami dominating over sophisticated brunette Lauren is perfectly filmed in black and white, and is every bit as beautiful to watch as it is erotic. Their encounter is full of hot tongue kissing and enthusiastic labia licking, and makes for a thoroughly satisfying ending to a superb film.

Unfortunately, the overall presentation of this classic in the digital medium leaves something to be desired. Caballero Video had taken it upon themselves to re-release this film once they entered the DVD market (early releases of NIGHT TRIPS, HOUSE OF DREAMS and SECRETS were released by David Enterprises), and for some reason, it looks like they just didn't give a damn. Some of the pictures on the back cover jacket and on the DVD label itself is clearly from the original NIGHT TRIPS video (taken from the fantastic Jamie Summers/Tori Welles/Porsche Lynn scene) . When it comes to something as simple as packaging [just use the same damn boxcover as the original VHS release, fer chrissakes!], this kind of mistake is just embarassing. Also, the transfer of the film is lackluster, perhaps no better and no worse than my copy of the original laserdisc (of course, you don't have to flip sides which is nice). I wish they had used a fresh, original source for the DVD, because now it is very unlikely that Caballero would go back to re- mastering the transfer. But even worse is the technical glitches which plague this disc can really drive a viewer crazy, beginning with mere annoyance due to some image shakiness while in the still frame mode, and then culminating into near intolerability when it comes to using the search feature on your DVD: try as you might, you literally cannot reverse search past the beginning of a chapter. You can skip backwards to the beginning of a chapter (whereupon the disc goes into the "play" mode), and speed search forward but that is about it as far as reliability is concerned. This could be a real pain for those who want to go back to repeat the climactic section of a particular scene using the search button on their remote. Although this is not a fatal error in terms of evaluating the quality of this disc, it certainly is damn annoying and should have been corrected by simple hands-on, trial and error trouble shooting before Caballero unleashed it to the public.

Still, when you take into consideration form over substance, this DVD is still worth adding to your collection for the main feature alone (as if Andrew Blake fans had a choice). Perhaps Caballero will someday see fit to remaster these classics and preserve their legacy. For now, however, and for better or for worse, this DVD version is the all we've got.