Vengeance (Wicked) Review

Reviewed by astroknight  on  4/14/2001

Running Time: 83 min.

Production Date: 10 / 10 / 2000

Director: Michael Zen

Cast: Serenity, Jewel De’Nyle, Kylie Ireland, Gwen Summers, Chris Cannon, and Lee Stone

Initial Expectations: Very high. From what I’ve heard it might be Wicked’s best DVD yet.

Initial Reaction: The movie’s great and the DVD is amazing!

Who Should Watch It : Anybody who likes well made and well written porn.

Who Should Avoid It: People who think Ed Powers is “Da Bomb!”.

Audio /Video Quality: The audio is excellent. Everything is very clear and well balanced. The video has some very slight grain and slight pixelation in a couple spots but it isn’t that noticeable. It’s just enough to knock it down form excellent. It also mixes full color and sepia toned scenes very well between the times the movie occurs.

Music: The music varies both its style and volume depending on the scene. It really shows how music can help out a scene.

The Feature: Michael Zen’s Vengeance once again covers one of his favorite subjects, the occult. This time out he tells a tale of two times, the puritan era and modern day. The characters are actually the same in both times, reincarnated through the ages and brought together once again. Over three hundred years ago, Jewel De’Nyle was about to make Serenity into a full witch. Before she could, however, Lee Stone accuses Serenity of being a witch because she loved Chris Cannon rather than himself. Their so-called friends Kylie Ireland and Gwen Summers turned on them and also accuse them of being witches and Serenity is hung for her crimes. In the present day, Serenity is being visited by dreams of her Puritan past which she tells her therapist Jewel about. What she doesn’t know is that Lee Stone is heading the clinic and that everybody else, with the exception of Gwen who doesn’t really appear much in the present day, seems to know what happened. Luckily for Serenity, the others don’t know about her... yet.

I hate to give away more than that about the plot, but it is very well done. Mr. Zen does a great job of blending the two times together. As Serenity recalls things about her past, something similar starts happening in the present or things in the present bring back visions of her past. A lot of credit for the plot’s success should also go both to the cast and the editors. If not for the cast’s acting skills, the connections wouldn’t have held together nearly as well. The editors also did a great job with how the sequences were edited together. Tension builds through the scenes in both times and adds to everything, including of course, the sex.

The sex in Vengeance is very rare. It seems to cover almost every type of sex there is. No, I don’t mean types like lesbian, straight, masturbation, group, bondage, etc. Yes, those styles are present also (with the exception of bondage), but in this case I mean the motivational types of sex. There’s lustful sex, loving sex, sex for power, and sex for manipulation just to name a few. The varied types of sex are a lot of what makes Vengeance such a strong movie.

The first sex scene in the movie introduces us to the love between Serenity and Chris Cannon. It starts out in the sepia tones for the scene between Chris and Serenity and turns full color early into the scene. Also in full color is Serenity masturbating to her vision in the bathtub. As always, Serenity has great energy and I have to wonder how many times they had to refill the bathtub to film the present scene. The past scene only involves oral sex and really keeps a romantic feel. Chris and Serenity make love in front of a roaring fire on a rug and have great chemistry. I’m in awe of the energy Serenity attacked Chris’s cock with. Even the masturbation in the present time of this scene appears romantic. It’s full of light as the bathroom Serenity’s tub is in is surrounded by windows and the tub itself is very artistic and almost antique feeling. In a nice plot touch, Chris and Serenity aren’t able to finish their lovemaking for a couple reasons. The main reason is that Lee interrupts them to accuse Serenity of being a witch. The secondary reason would be that Chris has already blown his load across Serenity’s face. Of course, as Vengeance shows, love can conquer almost anything so that doesn’t seem to be much of a reason here.

Once again in the past, Jewel casts a spell that turns on Serenity, Kylie, and Gwen and makes this one of my favorite all girl scenes in quite a while. The girls get a little nasty and use some toys of the times. Of course, plastic wasn’t quite invented yet, but vegetables were. This might seem a little corny (pun intended), but the chemistry of the girls really makes it work as they plunge eggplants (don’t worry, they’re fairly small), zucchini, and other veggies into each other’s orifices. Serenity even tit-fucks an ear of corn. It’s a nice creative touch that works very well. This scene is mixed with shots of the girls in a goth club and letting it all hang out. Anybody who enjoys all girl sex is going to love this scene.

Jewel takes on Lee Stone in both times for the next scene and each time has a different feel. In the past, Jewel fucks Lee in an attempt to save Serenity’s life. It’s a very desperate feel to this part of the scene as Jewel knows that this might be the only way for her to save her friend’s life. Unlike her normal performance, she’s fairly passive, or at least as passive as Jewel can get. At the same time, Jewel fucks Lee in the present. The present scene is almost the exact opposite of the past scene. Jewel is her normal dominant self as she takes a little revenge fucking Lee. She makes him hold his load until it looks like his balls might explode. It’s Jewel in all her naughty glory. Both scenes do a great job showing Jewel as an actress as well as showing some of Lee’s abilities. This is the first time I’ve seen Lee and he does a very good job. His face really reminds me a lot of Herschel Savage and he does just as good a job as I’m sure “Old Man Herschel” would do here.

Once again, Chris Cannon comes into play as he gets the pleasure of fucking Kylie Ireland in both time periods. There’s a quick scene with Chris fucking Kylie in the past in an attempt to save Serenity’s life that unlike the other scenes, isn’t cut into the present day scene. It’s not much of a scene sexually, but it does add a lot to the present day scene. In the present, Chris fucks Kylie in her office in a nasty scene. Kylie has changed her look a little lately, thankfully keeping the red hair, but adding a pierced belly button and shaving her bush off. It looks a little nastier and she’s turning into one heck of a nasty girl. She also has some of the best looking fake tits in the business. If all fake tits looked as good as hers I might not mind them quite as much as I do. Kylie’s very dominant in this scene and has a great amount of energy. According to the commentary, by the end of the scene she had sweat off almost every bit of makeup she started with. She pulls out all the stops here as Chris works her ass over in royal style. He tongue fucks her ass as she writhes in her chair fucking her pussy with four of her fingers. Later on, she takes three of Chris’s fingers in her ass while her pussy is fucked with seven more. The only thing that wasn’t too nasty in this scene was Chris blowing his population pudding across her stomach rather than her face. It’s the nastiest scene in the movie and definitely one of my favorites.

Later on, Kylie also gets a little piece of Lee Stone. I don’t really want to call it an actual scene, but there is a lot of sex there. Unlike the other scenes, this one is mostly little snippets of them having sex. It has a great place in the plot and there’s a lot of humor to the scene but it’s hard to call it an actual sex scene.

Finally, Chris and Serenity reunite for a loving sex scene mixing their romance in both times. Even with all of Serenity’s energy, and I think if we hooked up an alligator clip to each nipple we might be able to solve some of California’s energy woes, it comes off as romantic and loving. There’s no talking in the scene, just emotions and sex. I want to call this a very hot scene, but it just doesn’t seem right to call a scene this romantic “hot”. There’s too much more to it to limit it like that. It really shows the sexual talent of both Serenity and Chris in this scene. At first it would seem like an easy scene to do, but adult film stars don’t normally do loving scenes, they do lustful scenes. To finish off Vengeance , a movie all about love beating everything, including time, in any other way just wouldn’t feel right.

Michael Zen’s Vengeance is one of Wicked’s best movies. It isn’t drawn way out, such as Dream Quest was (and I don’t mean that in a bad way), but it gets the story across and characters developed in a rather short time. Even more amazing, however, is how the plot and characters even follow through in the sex scenes. Vengeance does what most high class adult films attempt to do with a great cast, story, and sex.

Extras: Wicked has really packed this DVD full of extras. Of course, the standards are here. You’ve got your information on the Free Speech Coalition, the Wicked Web and Wicked company profile, and the Wicked Casino. There’s also the list of Wicked’s AVN winners and nominees. They’ve also included trailers for Heart & Soul , Crazed, Crossroads, and The Bride of Double Feature .

The format of Wicked’s Cast Bios section has changed a little but it still looks very nice. Bios are included for Serenity, Kylie Ireland, Jewel De’Nyle, and Gwen Summers. As always there’s a little bit of personal information, a list of some of the performer’s other work with Wicked, and a link to the performer’s scene. With a cast this small I really wish a bio would have been included for the guys as well, but it’s nice to see all the ladies in the cast covered.

Michael Zen and Serenity give a full length commentary to the movie that’s very good. They have great interaction and it really helps it flow nicely without leaving many dead spots. They talk about some of the behind the scenes working of the movie as well as what Mr. Zen was aiming for. They also talk about the importance and effect of music on a scene. Serenity talks some about what goes through her head as she’s performing on camera and what it’s like to fuck in character. Sadly, the commentary seemed to be cut off a little at the end, but it’s still a great commentary.

If the commentary isn’t enough Serenity for you, she also has an interview lasting about eight and a quarter minutes that was done while her make-up was being applied. She tells about how this is her biggest Wicked movie ever and how Mr. Zen wrote it especially for her. She also talks about the cast and how close they became on the five day shoot. We learn a little more about her kickboxing from the fight scene and the training she went through as well as the costumes. Finally, she tells how she is absolutely happy with the final product. It’s a nice little bit of Serenity, who from the interview, appears to be a wonderfully nice person.

The box cover shoot featurette lasts just over two and a half minutes and feels like a music video. Part of the feeling is probably because the only dialogue in the featurette is the intro by Serenity. It’s kind of like a moving photo gallery that fans of Serenity are going to love.

All Access: The Making of Vengeance lasts almost eighteen minutes. There are short interviews with the entire cast as well as Michael Zen. There are a lot of shots of what happened behind the scenes put to music which gives a lot of the featurette a kind of music video feel. As with the rest of the DVD, it’s very well done. You get a pretty good feel for a lot of the cast and some of the hassles they had to go through filming the movie.

If you like photo galleries, you’re going to love Vengeance’s selection. As always the photo galleries are automated with five seconds per photo and include music. Also as usual each photo gallery looks great! To start with, there’s a two and a half minute photo gallery on the stunts and stunt training Serenity went through for the fight sequence that includes a link so you can jump to the actual sequence at any time. If you don’t jump ahead the fight sequence begins at the end of the gallery. Next, there’s a two and a quarter minute behind the scenes photo gallery, which is becoming a nice staple in Wicked’s DVD releases as of late. There’s also a minute and a half make-up photo gallery. Although there isn’t a lot of make-up work in Vengeance , especially when you compare it to features like Dream Quest , there is some and it does play in the story. Finally, there’s about a two and three quarter minute production photo gallery. This is the photo gallery that you get with almost every DVD. It’s well done and gives a good taste of the movie.

Of course, that’s not quite all. Lately, Wicked has been inserting Easter Eggs into their DVDs and this one is no exception. There are two bonus photo galleries of Serenity and Jewel one lasting about three and a half minutes and the other lasting forty seconds. To make it easier, they’re both located in the Special Features menus but that’s as close as I’m going to tell you.

There’s also a couple other nice touches that aren’t extras, per se, but are worth mentioning. As with many of their other recent releases, the cover for Vengeance has two sides, one soft core and one hard core. It’s a very eye catching cover that does a great job of giving a feel for the movie without really giving anything away. Also, the menus are very nice. I know that in the past there’s been a menu or two that I didn’t care for much, but this one fits the movie great. There were a couple times I got impatient and thought it took a little long, but overall it’s probably the same time that any other menu takes. I had a great feeling about the movie before it even started after checking out the different menus and seeing the care that Wicked put into the DVD.

Themes: Straight, lesbian, group, toys, anal, hot wax, masturbation, oral, and rimming (male > female)

Raincoat Factor: Medium high

Overall: Currently, Vengeance can be found online for between $23 and $30 with many stores having it for around $25. This is a bargain as I think this is one of the best overall DVDs I’ve seen in a long time. The movie, transfer, and extras are all magnificent!

Note to Wicked: I’ve been hearing for a while how the upcoming The Gate is your title to beat this year. If it’s better than this please include a complimentary nurse with each copy of the DVD. Your customers are going to need it.

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