Whores of Old Town, The Review

Distributor: Tarantino XXX Edition Details: Final Cut Version Streaming Movie Specs: Genres: All Sex Run Time: 76 minutes Rated: XXX Release Year: 2015 Director: Adam Christopher (as Tarantino XXX, Tony Bravo, and Stand Ley) Written by: Adam Christopher (as Tarantino XXX) Director of Photography: Adam Christopher Cast: Jessica Ryan, Tegan Riley, Zoey Portland, Holly, Cali Jade, Mena Li, Marc Vicious, Chriss Harden, Adam Christopher (as Tarantino XXX) 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 Whore's of Old Town presents itself as a take off of Robert Rodriquez and Frank Miller's Sin City. I had high hopes for The Whores of Old Town. Tarantino XXX, from the movies of his I have seen, enjoys digitally altering his footage and a take off of Sin City is the perfect movie for that. The opening scene could have been out of a Sin City pornoverse, the credits even call the characters Garv (Marc Vicious) and Goldie (Zoey Portland). There is even a nicely stylized opening credit sequence along with a voice over with a shot of a black and white street.

Sadly, there isn't a take off of Sin City to be found here. In fact, the only actual footage that may have been shot with a take off of Sin City in mind might have been that 30-second street shot. I am not even convinced that the first sex scene with Vicious and Portland was shot specifically for this movie. In reality, The Whore's of Old Town are a series of unconnected sex scenes that have been digitally modified to appear as if they are in the style of Sin City. Oddly, the movie ends with “to be continued,” which makes no sense for an all sex movie. That is the equivalent of ending an episode of America's Funniest Home Videos with the words to be continued.

Unfortunately, the attempt in this movie to emulate the look of Sin City is a failure and doesn't invoke the feeling of Sin City at all. In Sin City, both the films and the comic series, color is only used to accentuate aspects of the scene or frame. In The Whore's of Old Town, some colors have been stripped, leaving an odd look with partial colors and shadings in all of the scenes except for the second one. The results are browns, partial flesh tones, greens, purples/pinks, oranges, and reds left depending on which scene you are looking at. However, the accentuation is in everything that apparently had the color remaining which, for instance, gives Tarantino XXX's eyes a red sickly look in the final scene.

The only scene that doesn't have the odd color effects is the second one which features Camille as a strip tease dancer that has been heavily stylized into a black and white image that looks more drawn than live action. Had this actually been a take off of Sin City, the heavily stylized dancing would have made for a good short segue from the opening credits into a plotted scene, had it taken place at a strip club. However, this is not a plotted movie and the dancing is a long, nine-and-a-half-minute dance and masturbation scene. Due to the heavily stylized image, the scene is essentially unwatchable and the song “Porn Star Dancing” by My Darkest Days plays on a loop during the scene. Unfortunately, the song was not added in post-production but was playing live at the time the movie was shot, making the audio poor.

The lack of any continuity with the sex scenes and the supposed theme of the movie is very obvious since one of the scenes, the fourth one, with Chriss Harden and Cali Jade, contains some interview footage before the sex scene, indicating there may have been another project that this scene was originally intended for. The final scene has what appears to have possibly been at one point intended for one of Tarantino XXX's foot fetish projects where a woman (Mena Li) forces Tarantino XXX to worship her feet at knife point before going into the scene.

As with many of the titles that are being distributed by Tarantino XXX, this isn't the original version of the movie but is the final cut version. Two scenes that appeared in the original version, Tarantino XXX with Zoey Portland and a solo scene with Camille aren't present in this version. Instead, there is now a scene with Marc Vicious and Zoey Portland, a solo scene with Holly, and a scene with Cali Jade and Criss Harden.

The technical details are lacking. The coloring issue aside, as previously mentioned, the song in the stripping sequence and solo scene was recorded live instead of in post. The sound often has echoes that appear to trace back to how the audio was recorded originally. The first scene, with Marc Vicious and Zoey Portland, has a problem with Vicious' white t-shirt often blocking the action. However, the worst infraction is that direction has been left in the movie. Frankly, this just comes across as ineptitude. There is no reason why there should be direction left in a movie that is being released to the public.

Overall, I have a hard time recommending The Whore's of Old Town to anyone. Fans of plotted movies will be disappointed with the fact that The Whore's of Old Town has no plot and is just a series of unconnected sex scenes. Fans of all sex movies will likely find the digital altering of the colors present in the movie to be so distracting as to make the sex scenes inaccessible to them.

The edition of The Whore's of Old Town reviewed is the final cut version streaming through TarantinoXXX.com. The final cut version is different than the standard streaming option that one can find through venues such as HotMovies and Adult DVD Empire that ran for 71 minutes. The final streaming version runs for 76 minutes and is missing the scene with Tarantino XXX and Zoey Portland along with the solo masturbation scene with Camille from the original version. In their place is a scene with Marc Vicious and Zoey Portland, a scene with Chriss Harden and Cali Jade, and a solo masturbation scene with Holly.

The Whore's of Old Town is presented in the anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and appears to be shot on digital equipment. The site has the stream in 720p, 480p, and 240p. There doesn't appear to be any blemishes within the video that aren't intentional. Due to the stylized nature of the movie, it is impossible to determine if colors are rendering as they were intended to. Overall, there doesn't appear to be any issues with the video presentation. There is a bug that consists of a yellow box that states Tarantino XXX and has the A Porn Apart logo in the lower right-hand corner throughout the entire presentation.

The Whore's of Old Town is presented with an English Stereo audio track, which sounds fine for the material being presented. The sound contains echoes but this appears to be an issue with the master and how the movie was shot and not an error in the audio encoding. The dialog is clear and can be understood at all times.

Tarantino XXX hasn't included any extras for their streaming release of The Whore's of Old Town. It is unfortunate that Tarantino XXX didn't include the two cut scenes from the final cut version as extras for viewers to watch if they wanted to.

The Whore's of Old Town tries to pass itself off as a parody, spoof, or take off of Robert Rodriquez and Frank Miller's Sin City. However, in reality, the movie is nothing more than a series of unconnected sex scenes that appear to have had their color messed with in post-production, probably as an afterthought, and then put together to make this movie. As to exactly who the audience is for this title, I am not sure. Fans of plotted adult movies will be completely put off by this since there is no plot at all. Fans of all sex movies are likely to be irritated by the odd color work in the movie and will likely find the movie unsatisfying as well. Tarantino XXX has done a good job with their streaming release of the movie but hasn't included any extras.

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