Victoria Zdrok at Home Review

Reviewed by astroknight  on  5/5/2006

NOTE: This is an amateur video. Amateur and homemade movies don’t have the budget nor the resources of studio porn, and therefore rarely get close to the same quality technically. I’m rating this DVD on the same scale, but most homemade or amateur features would rarely make it above a 3 on the standard scale I use for studio porn for their technical aspects. The performers also aren’t normally the ‘glamour stars’ one expects from studio porn, and instead use people who look like somebody you might encounter in your day to day life. Finally, the camera work has a different feel, as it’s often shot from a tripod or with somebody who doesn’t have the technical training or experience of professional cameramen. That said, amateur and homemade features have a great charm to them, simple because the people in them are doing what they’re doing to have fun and because they enjoy it. All the things that separate them from studio porn contribute to that charm, I hope people will keep that in mind when checking out this review and not just look at the ratings as the ultimate word on this release. Since the technical aspects are normally lacking and there normally isn’t much for extras in amateur features, I’ve weighted my overall rating more heavily towards the sex than I do in most studio porn.

The Little Details

Running Time: 69 min.

Production Date: 12 / 16 / 2005

Director: None credited

Cast: Victoria Zdrok

The Short Story

Initial Expectations: Shot at Home has put out some of my favorite movies, and their “Shot at Home Alone” line has really impressed me with what I’ve seen. I can’t help but go into this one with high expectations.

Initial Reaction: Victoria is nice on the eyes, but this release was one of my least favorite “Shot at Home Alone” titles.

Who Should Watch It : Fans of Victoria Zdrok

Who Should Avoid It: Anybody wanting a solo movie that seemed very natural and realistic

The Technical Stuff

Audio /Video Quality: The technical aspects are on the weak side. Most of the audio is pretty good, with its biggest fault being a bit of camera hiss in the background, but there are a couple balance problems and background noises. The video is on the weak side, even for a homemade movie. The lighting is a bit inconsistent and there’s a bit of grain, neither of which are anything new for a homemade movie. The grain does become more of an issue in some places, and there even looks to be a little breakup in places. There is a little camera motion, but it isn’t enough to interfere most of the time.

Music: None

Watermark Warning: Although I don’t really care about watermarks too much, I mention it here because I know that many do. I don’t particularly like them, but Shot at Home makes them bearable by keeping theirs very small and stationary in the lower right corner so it’s easy to filter out.

Menus: The main menu nicely keeps with the standard Shot at Home feel with a still from the movie and the choices. The chapter menu is pretty basic, and lets you choose a scene based on a small clip of each scene.

The Feature

Victoria Zdrok is a former Playboy Playmate and Penthouse Pet of the year who also writes a column for Penthouse called “Vices and Vanities”. She’s a smoking hot dirty blonde with, needless to say, a great body as well as a brain. Here she gives a tour of her home while giving a fair amount of teasing.

Scene 1 - Victoria Zdrok

Victoria starts things out laying back on a couch wearing a pink shirt and pair of artistic jeans. She talks about why the room is one of her favorites as well as talking about herself for anybody who might not know who she is. She shows off the robe she wore for when she graduated with a PhD in psychology with a post-grad in sex therapy and some of the decorations around the room before showing how she likes to position her mirror so she can watch herself masturbate. Victoria starts playing with her nipples gently before sliding a hand into her pants to play with her pussy. She slides off her pants and shows off her nicely waxed pussy and fantastic ass before going back to lightly playing with herself. She rolls around a bit while working on herself naturally before pulling out her very favorite waterproof titanium vibrator. Victoria tries rubbing it to warm it up like she likes, and when that doesn’t work heads over to run some warm water over it as the camera continues to pan around the room. She returns and runs it around her pussy until she’s satisfied. Afterwards, she decides to lay back for a nap before continuing the tour.

This is a nice opening sequence. Victoria is very beautiful and has a great body, and she comes off as nicely inviting. She definitely knows how to pose for the camera, but the mirror gives me mixed feelings. It sometimes comes off a little vain, but at the same time it’s also very sexy. I think the biggest problem with the scene is that the camera is at about a ninety degree angle to the mirror, which makes some of it seem a little colder. This is a nice start to the movie.

Scene 2 - Victoria Zdrok

When Victoria returns, she gives a tour of her favorite bedroom wearing bunny pajamas and black heels. She freaks out when she finds a bug on the bed, and then apologizes for her bug phobia. She shows how nicely her pj’s open up in the back before heading over to the lingerie drawer. She models a sexy La Perla bra and panty set while talking about how she doesn’t like Victoria’s Secret. She moves through plenty of her lingerie drawer going through many different styles and colors.

This is an okay section. Victoria looks fantastic, and she has some very nice taste in her lingerie. Unfortunately the attitude got to me a little throughout this section. She comes off as a bit of a brand whore and at the same time almost sounds like a commercial many times. I was also a little disappointed because she went through soooo many different sets, and many of the ones she just held up and tossed aside I would have loved to have seen her in. This is a nice section, but it almost came off a bit snobby.

Scene 3 - Victoria Zdrok

Victoria moves into the kitchen and dining room next wearing a very hot little red and white outfit. She shows off her rooms and the view before heading up the staircase to her bedroom and workout room. Victoria works out a little in her heels before stripping down and doing a naked workout.

This is a nice tease segment. Victoria definitely works it during the workout, and at times felt like she was doing a photo shoot with how she positioned herself and moved around. That’s not a bad thing, as it definitely made things easy on the eyes. This is a fun little segment.

Scene 4 - Victoria Zdrok

Victoria heads to the bathtub next to clean up after her workout. She has her hair pulled back and sprays herself down with a shower head. Victoria gives her pussy a little extra attention and rubs herself down with a special cream she likes. She goes back to spraying her pussy before drying herself off and rubbing some almond scented body lotion around her body.

This is another nice segment. The masturbation aspect is very light, but Victoria gets nicely personal talking about some of her favorite things with the shower and getting herself looking and smelling like she likes. That said, it’s also held back a little by Victoria once again seeming to get enthralled by her reflection in the mirror. This is a pretty nice shower scene.

Scene 5 - Victoria Zdrok

Victoria heads back to the bedroom, starting with a sexy red robe-ish outfit with furry edges. She hops up on the bed to show one of her favorite toys, a huge fuzzy, lavender mitten. Victoria shows off one of her favorite vibrators before working through a plastic bag of sexy toys, almost all of which are a purplish-pink color. She gets in a little natural play as well, and finishes things up leaving me unsure if she got off or not.

This is a disappointing masturbation scene. Yes, Victoria looks fantastic, but here she seemed to be more concerned with showing off the things she had than with getting herself off. She leaves the toys aside to take care of her self after several minutes, but then falls back towards the toys. There’s glimpses of what Victoria really masturbates like here, but they seem few and far between leaving this a fairly empty scene.

Scene 6 - Victoria Zdrok

Victoria wears a sparkly red bikini for the final scene and starts things out lying back in a leopard-print chair. She works a dildo between her tits a little before reaching down to gently rub her pussy. She moves her toy down to work on her pussy, and softly plays with her nipples while she rubs the toy around and into her pussy. Finally, she strips down and moves around a bit before the camera fades out.

This is a much nicer masturbation sequence. Victoria seems to let her hair down here and comes across much more natural for most of it. She never gets really vocal or energetic, but that’s fine, just so long as it seems natural for her. This is a nice ending for the movie.

Victoria Zdrok at Home leaves me a little torn and sad. On one hand, I really love that Victoria would do a movie like this. Homemade videos are a very personal thing, and it’s not easy to open oneself up like that. On the other hand, it rarely seemed like she opened up. So much of the movie felt like she was marketing herself, her website, her auctions, and her favorite lingerie that I couldn’t help but wonder if she knew where Victoria Zdrok the person ended and Victoria Zdrok the product began. Some of this is probably due to how used to being in front of a camera Victoria is and her knowing things like which poses work best, but those obvious poses also took away some of the reality of it. Victoria also hurt things by seeming enthralled with her mirrors. The mirrors didn’t work bad in the opening masturbation, but she gave so much attention to them in the shower sequence that it started to lose me again. Perhaps the biggest problem for me is that Victoria never seemed to be able to let go of her stuff and just be herself. The opening segment and the final masturbation segments were the only scenes where Victoria seemed to be able to separate herself from her stuff, and that just lost me for much of the rest of the movie. I really wanted to like Victoria, but she just seemed kind of out of touch throughout the entire movie. It gave me a strong feeling that Victoria seems to think that people care about her stuff more than her, which was really sad. Victoria Zdrok at Home is an okay solo release that suffered by Victoria never seeming to be able to let go and be herself.

The Extra Stuff

There’s over a half hour of clips from other Shot at Home releases.

The Down -n- Dirty Sex Stuff

Themes: Homemade, tease, masturbation, and toys

Raincoat Factor: Medium low

Condom Usage: None needed

The Bottom Line:

Currently, most DVDs can be found for about $20 at Shot at Home’s website. This seems like a good title to check out Shot at Home’s new Pay Per View portion of the site. Victoria seems nice, but very little of this release felt natural. The technical aspects also lacked, but there’s Shot at Home’s usual care given to extra footage. This is a slightly above average amateur release.

Note to Shot at Home: It’s really great to see you getting some bigger names for this series. I hope you get a few more as well!

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

Other reviews by Astroknight