Secret of Harlot Hill, The Review

Reviewed by astroknight  on  4/19/2002

Running Time: 86 min.

Production Date: 12 / 2000

Director: Stuart Canterbury

Cast: Taylor St. Clair, Stevie, Mina, Lola, Gina Ryder, Angelica Sin, Alexis Amore, Chris Cannon, Kyle Stone, Nick East, and Tyce Bune

Initial Expectations: Stuart Canterbury has made quite a few well done features, which is what I’m expecting here.

Initial Reaction: It’s fun and has some good sex, just like porn should.

Who Should Watch It : Couples, fans of literature and porn

Who Should Avoid It: Anybody looking for more extreme sex and raincoaters

Audio /Video Quality: The audio is normally fairly clear, but a little on the low side. There’s a little bit of dubbing, as well as a little background noise, but neither interfere too much with the scene. For being shot on film, the video looks great. There’s some shadows, but they appear natural and don’t make things as fuzzy as film often can. The lighting is a bit on the low side for many of the scenes, but I’m guessing this is intentional to create a bit of the mood.

Music: The music has a slow and romantic feel to it, and rests very nicely in the background.

Menus: The main menu has some nice animation to give a good first impression. The chapter menu is very nicely done, letting you choose a scene based on a small clip of the scene, a title for the scene, and a list of the cast in the scene. If this isn’t enough, you can also choose between the main scene and the pop shot.

The Feature: Although most popular “thought” might try to convince you otherwise, often most problems can be solved with a little thought. When Angelica Sin and her fiancé Nick East are forbid to marry by Kyle Stone, Angelica’s guardian, she seeks the help of Sherlock Holmes (Tyce Bune) and Dr. Watson (Gina Ryder). Kyle refuses to let Angelica and Nick wed since he’s heard that Nick was seen on Harlot Hill, where all the loose women are. Not ones to let loose women stop them, at least not for long, Tyce and Gina set out to find out about Harlot Hill.

Angelica Sin starts things out in a carriage with Nick East, who’s wearing a large fake mustache. They start with a little kissing before Nick slides his hand up her dress to play with her pussy. His finger spends quite a bit of time there, and his face soon joins it between Angelica’s great thighs. She returns the favor by sucking Nick’s cock and working it over with her overly implanted tits. Angelica turns around to let Nick fuck her from behind, followed by the mandatory reverse cowgirl, and finishing with a bit of missionary before Nick gives Angelica’s tits a decent gob of guy goo. It’s a hot scene thanks to Angelica’s enthusiasm and quite a bit of her energy. She looks great here in her Victorian outfit, and although her platform boots don’t quite fit the style of the scene, they’re close enough to fit in for pretty much everybody who doesn’t pay attention to a lot of the little details. As a shoe and foot freak, I do tend to notice them.

Nick East returns, this time without the mustache, but instead wearing Taylor St. Clair’s mouth on his cock. He lets her briefly work over his cock before switching places with her so he can tongue her twat. Nick starts out fucking Taylor’s pussy in a standing missionary, but she quickly moves him into her ass. Nick stretches Taylor’s sphincter in the missionary position as well as reverse cowgirl before Taylor gets down to suck out his creamy filling out and directs it onto her tits. It’s a pretty good scene, but doesn’t have the same spark as its predecessor. Taylor does a good job, but Nick seems kind of along for the ride and didn’t manage much of a finish. I’m guessing this might have been his second scene of the day, so I’ll forgive him for not being able to manage much of a pop. I think more of the scene’s failings come from the camera work not being quite as good. It seems split between near-softcore distance shots and close-up penetration shots. There were very few shots that showed both Taylor and Nick as well as their naughty parts merging.

French maid Lola attends to her mistress Angelica Sinn’s needs. She takes care of washing Angelica’s back, telling her the local gossip, and of course, sucking her nipples and pussy since this is a porno. Since good help is hard to find, Angelica works over Lola’s nipples until they stick so far out that she almost has to throat them. Angelica slides back into the tub a little to get down and aggressively lick Lola’s pussy before having Lola join her in the tub. The girls show each other how they play with themselves, and even show each other first hand. It’s a very good scene that has some great chemistry. I have to admit that I expected something a little more intense than this with these two girls, but they did very well for keeping it as soft as they did.

Chris Cannon blows the wad (of cash) Tyce Bune gave him for information on Stevie, a cute brunette with overdone implants, and Mina, an average looking blonde. Chris dives into Stevie’s pussy while Mina works on her tits before letting the girls team up on his cock. They do a good job of sharing, and Stevie is rewarded afterwards with the first fuck, laying back on a hay bale for Chris to fuck her. Mina gets her turn next , and rides Chris’ cock with both her pussy and ass. Chris finishes things up by jerking himself off onto both girls pressing their tits together, and I have to say I hope he had a little money left over. This scene was fairly disappointing. The chemistry seemed to lack and there wasn’t a lot of energy. I’ve seen Stevie a few times before, and this was by far the worst scene I’ve watched her in.

Gina Ryder takes one for the team next, as she dresses like a harlot to get busy with rich dude Kyle Stone. She lays back for him to tongue her twat and then turns around so he can play “hide the salami” in her pussy. Kyle fucks Gina in a couple of the standard positions before she sucks and strokes his joy juice out and takes it on her tits. It’s another pretty average scene, with Gina not showing close to her normal enthusiasm. She smiles a bit, but it often seems forced.

Tyce Bune brings Alexis Amore back to Baker Street so she can celebrate with he and Gina after being very helpful on the case. The girls start out sucking Tyce’s cock before sixty-nining while Tyce fucks Gina. Thankfully, Gina shows more enthusiasm and energy here before she even finishes the blowjob than her entire previous scene. Alexis takes her turn with Tyce’s cock as she rides him cowgirl and lets Gina sit on his face. Finally, Tyce blows his nutty goodness across the girls tits as they hold them together. It’s a fairly hot scene that has some very good chemistry. This is the type of performance I’m used to seeing from Gina Ryder, and she does a great job of leading the scene.

The Secret of Harlot Hill is a fun adult film, but does have a few flaws that get in the way. For those that pay attention to little details like the plot, it’s normally well done, but Tyce Bune’s forcing a raspy voice to sound intelligent backfires. Gina Ryder, on the other hand, does a great job and adds a lot of charm to her scenes. The sex scenes end up a little above average, with Angelica Sin leading the way through her couple sex scenes with a lot of enthusiasm and energy. Although a couple of the scenes do lack, The Secret of Harlot Hill is normally quite a bit of fun and has some nice sex as well. It’s a combination that raises The Secret of Harlot Hill above a lot of other porn out there.

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

Extras: Bios are included for Gina Ryder, Angelica Sin, Taylor St. Clair, Alexis Amore, Lola, Nick East, Kyle Stone, Tyce Bune, Stevie, and Chris Cannon. Each bio gives a photo from the feature, a little personal information, and a link for “Action Shots”. The photo gallery uses a thumbnail format to display twenty photos. From there, you can select which ones you’d like to see and blow them up to near full screen size, which also labels who the stars are in the photo. Trailers are included for Sex Across America: 1st Stop Las Vegas, Sex Across America Second Stop: New Orleans, Sex Across America Third Stop: San Francisco, and Sex Across America Fifth Stop: Miami, A Witch’s Tail, A Wolf’s Tail, Sex Spell, Sex Island, The Puppeteer, A Midsummer Night’s Cream, The Fiesta, Invisible, Emerald Rain, Crystal Dreams, and Caribbean Undercover.

The bonus scene comes from Nicholas Steele’s highly enjoyable The Puppeteer and stars Dale DaBone and Briana Banks. They start out in a sixty nine so Dale can eat her pussy as Briana takes his cock down her throat repeatedly. Rather than quickly moving on, they spend quite a bit of time here and work each other over very well. In an odd twist for today’s porn, Briana and Dale only fuck in one position before Dale decorates Briana’s tits. Dale does work over both her pussy and ass, but it’s still strange to only see the girl lay in one place to get taken care of rather than working through three or four different positions. Even though it’s only one position it work very well due to the great chemistry between Briana and Dale. This is a great scene, and as I said before, a great feature that has a lot of replay value.

Finally, there’s a behind the scene featurette that runs a little under five minutes. Although short, there’s some good stuff here. There’s a few interviews with people such as Angelica Sin, Nick East, and Tyce Bune, as well as showing the scenes being shot. Unfortunately, the featurette doesn’t really seem to get past Angelica and Nick’s scene, which is too bad since I was really looking forward to seeing a bit more of Gina. It’s still a fun five minutes, but another ten or fifteen would have really been great.

Themes: Straight, tit-fuck, anal, lesbian, masturbation, and group

Raincoat Factor: Medium low

Overall: Currently, The Secret of Harlot Hill can be found between $13 and $25 with several stores offering it under $20. If you’re looking for a fun and light porno, you can do a heck of a lot worse for $13. Unfortunately the transfer has a few minor problems, but there’s some nice extras here that help to make up for it.

Note to Adam & Eve: Please pay a little more attention to your transfers. This is one of many lately where the audio level seemed very low.

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

Other reviews by Astroknight