Up For Grabs: Tera Patrick Review

Running Time: 92 min.

Production Date: 10 / 21 / 1999, 7 / 20 / 2000, and 10 / 12 / 2000

Director: None listed (which never gives anybody a good feeling as they start to watch a feature)

Cast: Tera Patrick, Jade Marcella, Chandler, Sky Taylor, Barbie Bell, Nina, Erik Everhard, and several guys who I don’t recognize and who aren’t given credit

Initial Expectations: Something about this one worries me.

Initial Reaction: The title is ironically appropriate.

Who Should Watch It : Extreme fans of the performers

Who Should Avoid It: Anybody looking for an interactive feature or hot sex

Audio /Video Quality: The audio is average at best. The balance changes throughout the scene, which is a little annoying, and some parts are horribly off balance. There’s also quite a bit of outdoor background noise, since all the scenes are set outdoors, as well as frequent comments from the director that never got edited out. The video has a soft feel to it, almost as if it was shot on film. It’s also has frequent problems with shadows in many of the shots. There’s also some horrible pixelation flashes that are extremely noticeable.

Music: The music seems pretty typical for a couples style feature, but comes and goes during the scenes. It also changes in balance throughout the scene, ranging between nonexistent and slightly overpowering.

Menus: The main menu is simple, but does have a nice little bit of animation to give it a soft and friendly feel. The chapter menu gives a small clip of each scene where you can barely identify the girl.

The Feature: Up for Grabs Vol. 1 is a series of unrelated sex scenes. There’s absolutely no setup to any of the scenes, and the only thing that at first appears to set them apart from other features like this is that it can be viewed as a standard feature or with an interactive option. I’ll get into the interactive option in the Extras portion of the review, so for now, let’s get on with the sex!

Tera Patrick starts things off kneeling in front of Erik Everhard buck nekkid. She strips off his shirt before he attacks her near perfect tits, and then removes his pants to orally challenge his trouser snake. She gives him some decent head, although the camera angles never really seem to give an angle that lets you really appreciate Tera’s great oral skills. He bypasses warming her up and instead goes straight to fucking Tera from behind. Afterwards he goes back to relaxing in the wicker couch as Tera rides his cock, and then moves around so Tera can take a nice facial. Perhaps I had my hopes up a little high due to this feature and scene having Tera Patrick in it, but I came close to falling asleep watching this scene. I’m sure the bottle of cider I had before and watching it late at night didn’t help things, but this was a boring scene that’s going to be a disappointment for most fans of Tera and Erik. There’s very little chemistry and the camera angles don’t help a single thing. I’m thinking this is probably a great scene to use the interactive feature with since then you can just go right to the pop shot and let everybody take that nap they all appear to be needing.

Jade Marcella steps up to the plate next with a guy that I don’t recognize. Unlike Erik, he starts out eating Jade’s bald pussy and taking the time to get her nicely warmed up. Jade also appears to be there just to collect a check, as the chemistry pretty much sucks from the start. Her moaning seemed mechanical, almost like she was doing it on cue. Her cocksucking’s a little better, which she gets into after having her pussy eaten, but even that doesn’t show the enjoyment for sex that many of us have come to expect. She gets into things a little better as she starts to get fucked a little, but about the only things you can see clearly is the close-up shots due to the excessive shadows in the scenes. She does take a nice facial to end things, but the obvious poses for the camera are a bit of a drawback here as well. If the technical aspects were up to par, this one would probably end up a pretty average scene.

Barbie Bell gets busy by a pool with another guy I don’t recognize. They kiss a little before he gets behind her to kiss her other lips. She returns the favor with a nice blowjob before wrapping her pussy around his cock. They work through several positions (the one shown here is a common angle throughout the feature), most of which are pretty common, and you even get to see things that most editors cut out such as the guys cock popping out and impaling the girl causing her to give a painful cry of “fuck” that makes the guy apologize. They had some good momentum until then, but things get a little more restrained when Barbie realizes that with the budget for this feature they probably just cleaned up a guy they found on the corner with a sign that read “will fuck for food”. Barbie finally finishes things with a decent attempt at a facial. Surprisingly, this scene appears to have a little potential, but unfortunately not much is done with it.

Chandler and Nina change gears for the feature with a little lesbian action next. It starts out with some nice kissing, but soon becomes the lesbian porn version of Where’s Waldo as you try to find the girls amid the shadows from the trees they’re standing under. Chandler journeys down between Nina’s thighs with her fingers and face, nicely working both Nina’s hole and clit as well as reaching up to spank Nina’s tits. Nina repays the favor by sliding her finger between Chandler’s lower lips while licking her stomach. Chandler bends over to let Nina fuck her with a dildo after getting warmed up with Nina’s finger before ending abruptly. It’s a horrible end to a scene that was actually trying to struggle a little above average.

Finally Sky Taylor gets it on with a guy that looks a little like Michael Raven (but isn’t). They kiss each others bodies a little before Sky shows that she just might have a chance of getting that golf ball through the garden hose. She puts some nice energy into it as well as some good eye contact. She gets the proper porno thank you of having her tits and pussy worked on nicely before he sheaths his skin sword in her snatch. He moves on to fuck her from behind in each of her holes. They go back to a little missionary work before Sky finishes things with an impressive facial. This is definitely one of those cases of saving the best for last. This is a hot scene and has very good chemistry. After the rest of this feature I think it might have gotten on here by accident, but I’m happy it did.

There are certain things that normally make me afraid of a DVD. The first, which is pretty common, is when the DVD has several production dates. This normally means a cookie cutter feature, where somebody just slaps scenes together. Next, I get worried when there isn’t a director listed. To me, this means that somebody doesn’t want their name on this feature. There’s an old saying about “a face only a mother could love”, and if the mother who did this one doesn’t want to be associated with it, them I normally don’t find much to love about it either. Finally, not listing many people in the cast, or including Ed “Ewwwww” Powers or Dick “Extremely” Nasty in the cast list. Thankfully this doesn’t have either Ed or Dick, but only lists one person in the cast. It never even lists the entire cast anywhere in the feature! If it isn’t bad enough to find one of these things in a feature, Up for Grabs Vol. 1, which should describe the job status of the braniac behind this one, has all of them! The sex is normally uninspired, with the exception of Sky Taylor who’s the only real stand out performer here, and isn’t helped by the camera work. Every scene is plagued by shadows and the camera even pans over to watch the action in one of the other scenes that was being done at the same time! Ironically, Up for Grabs fits this title perfectly, since except for the final scene with Sky Taylor, it doesn’t seem like a DVD anybody should pay for.

Extras: There are only a few extras here. Trailers are included for The first three episodes in the Up for Grabs series.

The photo gallery is run as a dual gallery. This gives you the choice of watching it manually or as an auto photo gallery. If you choose to run it manually, you also have the ability to zoom in on the pictures. Although the idea itself is very good, the gallery itself is pretty lame brained. There’s about two dozen photos, but only Jade Marcella and Barbie Bell are included in it. That’s right boys and girls, no Tera Patrick, the cover girl of the feature.

Finally, there’s the ability to run the feature as an interactive feature with the Fantasy Mode, where the cover states you can “control the action with out multi-level fantasy mode”. Strangely, although there are five scenes in the movie, you get six choices here, since you can choose either the scene with Chandler or the scene with Nina despite it’s the same scene. When you choose a scene, it gives you a small task bar at the bottom that lets you select where you want to go in the scene among four choices. Continuing the low quality of the DVD, you get the same bar regardless of the scene you‘re watching, so with Chandler and Nina you still get a pop shot icon as well as one for fucking. As with most interactive features, your selection takes you into a loop that keeps playing until you make another selection. This is okay for most everything except for the pop shots, which also continues in a loop. It’s a decent idea for a feature, but unfortunately VCA did it much better well over a year ago in White Lightning.

Themes: Straight, toe-ing, rimming (male > female), spanking, lesbian, toys, and anal

Raincoat Factor: I’m honestly not sure what to say. It should be extreme since every scene goes directly to the sex, but so much of the feature is done so poorly that I’m not really sure how anybody could get a decent wank out of it.

Overall: Before you even think about buying Up for Grabs, don’t. If you absolutely, positively think you have to see it, rent it and use the money you saved to pick up a six pack of Redhook so that at least part of the experience will be highly enjoyable. Most of the sex is uninspired and what the camera somehow manage to get are normally at least partially obstructed by shadows. Although the interactive aspect is a nice idea, it also doesn’t work that well.

Note to Adam & Eve / Destiny Productions: It’s great to see you trying to come out with an interactive feature, but it’s much better to concentrate on what you can do well and build people’s respect than to jump into something half assed, do it poorly, and lose their respect and support.

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

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