Vagnificent Seven, The Review

Distributor: Tarantino XXX Edition Details: Standard Streaming Movie Specs: Genres: All Girl, All Sex Also known as: The Hatemen Eight Run Time: 109 minutes Rated: XXX Release Year: 2016 Director: Adam Christopher (as Tarantino XXX) Written by: Adam Christopher (as Tarantino XXX) Director of Photography: Adam Christopher Cast: Lily Cade, Lotus Lain, September Reign, Amber Ivy, Vera Drake, Sadie Pop, Jessica Ryan, Audrey Noir, Norah Nova Release Specs: Audio: English 2.0 Stereo Subtitles: none Video: Widescreen, 1.78:1 (anamorphic) Video Format: NTSC Format: Streaming Regional Code (for DVD/Blu-ray): N/A Number of discs: N/A

The Vagnificent Seven, from all appearances, is an all girl western themed adult movie that takes on Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight. The movie ends up being an incomprehensible mashup of The Hateful Eight and Inglourious Basterds that sadly makes little sense. The attempt at a plot is only shown through intertitles. The concept is that the film takes place in an alternate reality where boy/girl sex has been banished and those caught are put into slavery (or at least I think that is the set-up, there does appear to be an error on the intertitles. Ruth “The Hangman” (Lily Cade), Django Freewoman (Lotus Lain), a slave turned bounty hunter, Christine Womannix (Amber Ivy), the town sheriff, and Major Martha Warren (September Reign), a slave turned bounty hunter, and Ruth's slave (Audrey Noir) all arrive at a hoebadashery.

That is essentially all there is as far as the plot goes for the movie. Basically, The Vagnificent Seven plays out like Tarantino XXX wrote down his stream of consciousness for the original movie idea and then just shot whatever was written down, whether it made sense in context or not.

There are moments within The Vagnificent Seven that I absolutely loved. There was a good CGI visual of a theater burning while the audience was watching a blowjob scene on the screen. No, this visual never would have passed in a Hollywood movie, but for an adult movie, it was good. I just wish that Tarantino XXX had saved it for a project where it actually fit. I liked the cabin in the woods that we keep seeing, the exterior that is. It had a very different feel than most of what is being made these days since snow in SoCal is, let's say, rare although not unheard of.

There were also some well done all girl scenes. The scene with Sadie Pop, despite her wearing Nazi-inspired clothing, and Vera Drake sizzled with heat. But alas, the scene felt out of place in the movie set in what came across as a western saloon. The scene with September Reign and Jessica Ryan is also very well done but it really felt out of place in the movie, moreso than the preceding one since both are supposed to be slaves and having sex on a modern couch in a modern room.

Which brings us to one of the major issues with the movie. Nothing fits together. At no point does any part of the movie interlock with another and actually make a coherent arc. The hoebadashery is supposed to be in a cabin out in the snowy woods, one gets the feeling it is not modern times, but Tarantino XXX doesn't actually state this directly (he does state it is an alternate reality). However, then he has some segments dropped in spoofing portions of Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, which is designed to look very close to Nazi Germany, despite being a little different. Then others have completely modern sets. As a result, the viewer is never allowed to enter the world the movie takes place in since it shifts too much. The sex scenes seem just like random scenes mashed together.

Then the technical shortcomings come in. While the burning theater scene is actually done very well, there is an absolutely horrible green screen effect used for September Reign and Amber Ivy's scene. The end result is that Reign and Ivy, along with furniture, seem to be floating around the room the scene takes place in. The effect is so bad it ruins the scene completely. The interior location for the hoebadashery doesn't resemble the outside at all ruining any belief that they are in fact the same location. Direction to the cast has been left in the movie instead of edited out. There are additional editing issues with continuity inside the scenes themselves along with some very jarring cuts. The camera can be very shaky at times and there is even a moment where it gets knocked around.

The movie is broken into three chapters, where we get intertitles at the beginning of each chapter. Other than that, the movie is devoid of any dialog until the very end. Even when the viewer reaches the end, the viewer has no idea what the story arc in the movie is supposed to be. The chapters don't line up to sex scenes, as some chapters contain more than one sex scene. I suspect at one point each one was supposed to work with the others to tell the story but if so, that got lost somewhere in the movie making process.

Sadly, Tarantino XXX takes some good ideas, that probably shouldn't be in the same movie together, and mixes them with some bad ideas mixes in some good effects along with some horrible effects and cobbles together an obviously hastily assembled movie that is sure to frustrate most, if not all, viewers. There are some good sex scenes in the movie that are probably more worth viewing as the scene itself, instead of the entire movie.

The edition of The Vagnificent Seven that has been screened and reviewed is the streaming only version available through TarantinoXXX.com. The edition available through TarantinoXXX.com appears to be the same version that is available through other VOD services.

The Vagnificent Seven is presented in the anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and it appears to have been shot digitally. The movie is presented in 720p, 480p, and 240p. There doesn't appear to be any issues with the image, other than those that have purposely been done to the image digitally during certain portions of the movie. Colors are nicely displayed through the movie. There is a bug that says Tarantino XXX in the bottom right corner throughout the movie.

The Vagnificent Seven is presented with an English 2.0 Stereo audio track, which is lacking. There are places where the audio is heavily muffled. While it doesn't disrupt any necessary dialog, the sound still is very poor during those periods and affects the presentation of the movie.

Tarantino XXX has included a few extras for their streaming only release of The Vagnificent Seven. “The Secret Deleted Ending” is a 21-minute featurette with the original ending to The Vagnificent Seven. The first six-minutes of the piece features Adam Christopher explaining why the ending was originally shot and why it was subsequently cut and then the original ending is shown in its entirety. There is also a five-minute bloopers reel.

Tarantino XXX's The Vagnificent Seven has some great ideas that unfortunately are polluted by some very poor ideas and a movie that never seems to quite understand what it is trying to do and as a result never really executes anything properly. There are some good sex scenes in the movie but the plot, what little of it exists within the movie, is frankly a mess. There are some very poorly done CGI effects that bring down aspects of the movie as well. I would recommend checking out the better sex scenes by themselves through a VOD site than the entire movie as a whole. Tarantino XXX has done an okay job with a good image but audio issues and no extras.

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