Peekarama: Afternoon Delights / Slave of Pleasure Review

Distributor: Vinegar Syndrome Edition Details: Standard DVD Release Specs: Video Format: NTSC Format: DVD Regional Code (for DVD/Blu-ray): 0 (All) Number of discs: 1

This release of Vinegar Syndrome's long-running Peekarama series contains two films adult films from the extremely prolific director Shaun Costello, Afternoon Delights and Slave of Pleasure. The two films on the release couldn't be more different. Afternoon Delights is an extremely well-done vignette film and Slave of Pleasure is a hokey detective film. Slave of Pleasure isn't bad, however, Afternoon Delights alone is worth adding this release to your classic adult film collection. You can jump to the review of Afternoon Delights or Slave of Pleasure or one can just keep reading to read all of them.

Afternoon Delights is a feature-style vignette film from prolific adult filmmaker Shaun Costello, using the pseudonym Warren Evans. Afternoon Delights tells the story of a weekly Tuesday night poker game where Pete Ferrell (Eric Edwards), Frank (Kenneth Schwartz), George, Gary, and Alan (Phillp Rothstein, Tony Canoli, and an uncredited actor) get together for a night of card playing. This Tuesday night's host Pete has come up with a new game to invigorate the game. Each of the men is to write down the story of one spicy secret of one of their ex-wives, which will be read randomly. At the end, they will each try to figure out which man wrote down each story. For the purpose of each story, the ex-wife in each story will be referred to as Mrs. Smith.

In adult entertainment, a standard vignette movie isn't hard to put together. All you need are several interesting premises coupled with some enjoyable sex scenes, none of which usually relating to each other, and you have a vignette movie. A feature-style vignette movie, where there is a connective thread that ties all of the vignettes together, which often don't have much relation to each other, is a much harder feat. Not only does the premise for each vignette have to be good and be coupled with an enjoyable sex scene but then you need the connective tissue to make all these unrelated vignettes somehow relate to each other. More often than not, the connective tissue seems weak and doesn't carry the feature-style vignette movie.

Afternoon Delights is an example of an excellent feature-style vignette film. The connective tissue is the Tuesday night poker game where all of the footage, except for a blowjob, is non-sexual. Costello has assembled a good set of actors — Eric Edwards, Kenneth Schwartz, Tony Canoli, Phillp Rothstein, Christie Ford, and an uncredited male — who do a really good job with carrying the plotted material. Each of them narrates a story, of a Mrs. Smith, obviously, each of these are the vignettes that make up the bulk of the film. Outside of the narration from the poker game participant reading the story, each vignette is almost dialog-free.

Each of the Mrs. Smith vignettes are well-done as well. The best being Vanessa Del Rio's Mrs. Smith. Anyone who is familiar with Vanessa Del Rio knows that she can melt the screen and her sultry sexuality as she is tramping in an adult movie theater, playing Costello's 1977 film Dirty Susan, that leads to a gangbang. This scene is the highlight of the film, however, that isn't to indicate that any of the other Mrs. Smith scenes are bad at all.

Costello manages to work in all sorts of different types of scenes and fetishes into Afternoon Delights. No matter what the viewer is into, it's likely that Costello has worked it into Afternoon Delights. In addition to Del Rio's gangbang, Serena's Mrs. Smith gets a double penetration while auditioning for a porno film, Samantha Fox's Mrs. Smith is a mistress with a slave (Alan Adrian), Merle Michaels' Mrs. Smith takes on some construction workers, and Veronica Hart's Mrs. Smith is violated by dentist Dr. Harkness (Bobby Astyr) and his nurse (Diana May) while under sedation.

Usually, vignette adult films just end up being rushed and poorly done vehicles for unrelated sex scenes that leave fans of feature-style adult films frustrated and disappointed. Afternoon Delights is one of the exceptions to that and is highly recommended to fans of the genre.

Vinegar Syndrome has done a beautiful job with their DVD release of Afternoon Delights. Afternoon Delights was shot on 16mm film, which was designed to be blown up to 35mm for projection, and Vinegar Syndrome has used a 2K scan of 35mm archival prints for this release. Afternoon Delights is presented in the anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio of 1.78:1 in 480p. The image on this release looks great. There are the to be expected artifacts, grain, and print damage, all minimal, in the image. The colors in the film look great. Vinegar Syndrome has done their normal great job with this release.

Afternoon Delights is presented with an English Dolby Digital 1.0 monaural audio track. The dialog in the film is clear and easy to understand at all times. There is some hiss present in the audio but not to any extent that it detracts from the viewing experience.

Vinegar Syndrome has included a few extras on the release. There is a commentary track with Shaun Costello and Joe Rubin that was conducted over the phone. The theatrical trailer for Afternoon Delights is also included in the release.

Slave of Pleasure is a feature adult film from prolific adult film director Shaun Costello, using the pseudonym Russ Carlson. Slave of Pleasure is the third, and final, entry in the private detective Dan McCord adult film series; the first two being Dirty Susan and The Fire in Francesca respectively. As far as adult detective films go, Slave of Pleasure isn't the best nor is it the worst.

In Slave of Pleasure, Richard Anselm (Shaun Costello) hires private detective Dan McCord (Roger Caine) to find his missing wife Eileen (Roseanne Farrow), who has been kidnapped by Henri, a white slaver. Richard, unbeknownst to Eileen, has also been having an affair with Eileen's best friend Barbara Benedict.

To be honest, the plot isn't the greatest. The plot often seems a little too convenient just allowing events to happen to make the plot work instead of having any true complexity or making any of the characters in the film actually work toward the outcome. That being said, Slave of Pleasure isn't a bad watch, there are just far better-plotted adult films.

The other issue with Slave of Pleasure is Roger Caine isn't the best actor in the adult industry and the film suffers having him in the lead. The sex scenes in the film are rather good, but that is to be expected from Costello, who was always good at shooting sex scenes. Costello also brings a little more redemption to Slave of Pleasure by utilizing some great New York City locations that really fit the film very well. Overall, Slave of Pleasure isn't a bad little flick as long as you don't go in expecting a lot from it.

Vinegar Syndrome has done a nice job with their DVD release of Slave of Pleasure. Slave of Pleasure was shot on film and Vinegar Syndrome has used a 2K scan of 35mm archival elements for this release. Slave of Pleasure is presented in the Academy aspect ratio of 1.33:1 in 480p. The image quality in Slave of Pleasure is very good, as most viewers have come to expect from Vinegar Syndrome. There are the expected artifacts, grain, and print damage. The colors in the film look beautiful.

Slave of Pleasure is presented with an English Dolby Digital 1.0 monaural audio track. There aren't any noticeable issues with the audio presentation at all. The dialog is clear and easy to understand at all times.

As far as the extras go, there is an audio commentary with Joe Rubin and Shaun Costello about the film.

Vinegar Syndrome has, yet again, put out a beautiful release of classic adult films with this entry in their long-running Peekarama series. This entry features two very different films from prolific adult film director Shaun Costello. Afternoon Delights is one of the best of the vignette films that was ever made by the adult film industry and Slave of Pleasure, the third and final entry in the Dan McCord series, is a hokey detective tale. This release is worth picking up for Afternoon Delights alone. Vinegar Syndrome has done a beautiful job with the audio and video quality on this release.

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