Seven Deadly Sins (Vivid) Review

Reviewed by Saki  on  1/17/2000

Seven Deadly Sins (1999)
Studio: Vivid
Directed by: Robyn Dyer
Starring: Janine, Julia Ann, Candy Hill, Azlea, Alexandra Silk, Shelbee Myne, Heaven Leigh, Veronica, Jewel Valmont, Regan Starr, Lola, Dee, Steve Taylor, Ian Daniels, Kyle Stone, James Bonn, Frank Towers, Johnny Peters, Devin Wolf, and Michael J. Cox
Running Time: 1:54
Format: Single Sided, Dual Layer
DVD Features: "Virtual Environment" animated menus, full motion video chapter selection menu, "Meet the Vivid Girls" full motion video profiles, alternate video angles, 7 hardcore video clips, clips from Interactive Sex Splash and Dyanna Presents: Vivid's Virtual Vixens, and trailers for Night Hunger, Tangled Web, and On The Street

The First Word: Seven Deadly Sins is an above average Vivid production, but I'm not falling over myself to give it a perfect rating like most everyone else has.

Plot Synopsis: This film is made up of seven different stories, each coinciding with the biblical "Seven Deadly Sins." Of course, since these are X-rated tales, all of the sins are related to sex. And, as you might expect, all of stories end with the downfall of the people who engage in the deadly sins. In "Envy" Janine plays a double role of a porn superstar and her envious, geeky fan, while "Lust" stars Candy Hill as a nymphomaniac who imagines herself having sex with everyone she meets. James Bonn finds his wife having a not-so-secret affair in "Anger," a wealthy but bored couple invite three young women to engage in a food-filled orgy while they watch in "Gluttony," and Veronica is a vain porn star who can't get enough of her own image in "Pride." The film finishes with "Sloth" (with Regan Starr playing a lazy shut-in and her slim & horny inner voice) and "Greed" (Michael J. Cox as a preacher who finds that women can't resist his charms and ends up betting money that he can score with a group of young women).

Notable Performances: Of the seven sins (scenes), I found three or four of them to be deadly, with the others being survivable. "Anger" features a lot of dirty talking and humiliation (along the lines of Azlea telling James that she fucks other guys because he's limp-dicked and can't satisfy her--to which he responds with actions, not words). "Pride" also had some aural teasing as well as some great penetration shots in the threesome between Veronica, Jewel, and Johnny. "Sloth" was really funny, with Regan's horny inner-self dying to get laid while being stuck in her fat outer-self. The inner Regan forces the outer Regan to hire a male in-call escort, leading to some Deuce Bigalow moments. :)

Finally, the "maybe" fourth scene is the award-winning lesbian scene between Janine and "herself" (actually Julia Ann serving as body double). I'm not a big fan of Janine or the use of strap-ons, but the oral sex is pretty hot. And I suppose the idea of two identical "twins" getting it on with each other is strangely appealing too.

Dislikes: Aside from the usual disappointment I experience from movies with a lot of fake tits, I had several other gripes with Seven Deadly Sins. To begin, while I don't expect great acting in a porno, I do expect halfway believable performances in plot-driven adult movies. From the first scene with Janine to the end of the film, there were several moments when I winced at really poorly delivered lines. For example, while Janine had some great acting moments, she also had some really painful ones, making her AVN "Best Supporting Actress in a Film" award highly questionable.

Also, Vivid features all have the same "look and feel"--and ones that I don't care for. I'm convinced that you can watch any film or video for one minute and know whether it was made by Vivid. It's hard to explain, but the sound and cinematography in a Vivid picture is very distinctive--the soundwork is generally hollow and reverberating, while the visual look is detached and artificial. I have a hard time getting into Vivid movies because they don't seem real (I can't trust the story and I can't trust the sex). I'm sure that sounds wierd, but after you've seen as many X-rated movies as I have, you start seeing patterns in all of the chaos.

Then there are a slew of disappointments involving the DVD itself, which I'll talk about next.

DVD Notes: Let's start with the transfer. While the movie was shot on film, it still has a very strong "video" look to it. But that, along with the "grainy" look of other scenes, might have been a creative decision--I've never seen the VHS release to figure out if this was an intentional decision by the director of photography or a poor transfer. But I can definitely tell that there are lots of unnecessary compression artifacts throughout the transfer. In the scenes with solid color backgrounds (green and red), there's a great deal of distracting gradiation and color shifting where there should be none. If you freeze-frame, you'll see great big "jaggies," not the photographic still quality that great transfers have. I have no idea why there are compression artifacts--it's not due to lack of enough space since it's on an RSDL disc (speaking of which, there's a very noticable layer change placed between two scenes, which would have been great except that they use seamless transition graphics to go to another scene). The sound is better, having very discrete left and right channels and excellent range. However, as I mentioned earlier, the dialogue sounds like it's being delivered in an concert hall, even when I turn off all sound processing on my receiver.

Alternate angles are another problem. First, the alternate angles, while welcome, do not match the soundtrack most of the time. In other words, the alternate angles are put together from other footage filmed during the same scene but not at the same time. Normally, with all of the moaning and screaming, it doesn't matter, but when you can see the actors' faces and the audio doesn't match their lip movements, it's very distracting. Second, there's the Vivid DVD logo that's burned into the picture when the alternate angles are available--is that entirely necessary? Third, in general, you can't fast forward, rewind, or pause footage from any of the angles during these sections either. :(

Turning to the extra features, I wasn't impressed. The "VR environment" is simply a 3-D front end (and not a particularly impressive one at that) to the normal menu options. It's also generic--there's no way of knowing what disc you're playing since there's no customized artwork. There are lots of extra video clips, but they aren't labeled (I want to know, at a minimum, where the clip came from and who are the people involved). Vivid also needs to get a clue from VCA or Wicked about how to put together a real preview trailer--their previews look like they came from the late 1980s. About the only thing I was impressed with was the FMV "Meet the Vivid Girls" profiles, which are about the best I've seen from any of the studios.

The Last Word: I'm grudgingly giving Seven Deadly Sins an above average rating, even though I didn't particularly care for it myself. Why? Because, it is an above average release from Vivid in almost every way: story, length, cast, and sex. Since most people aren't as critical and jaded as I am, I figure that a lot of viewers will enjoy it more than I. So I'll cut Vivid some slack and give SDS the benefit of a doubt.