After the Kiss Attack, there is only silence

Kiss Attack is one of those porn movies that, characteristic of adult marketing, had a lot of pre-release hype and then was never heard from again. This is because most porn movies, unless they are Pirates or Deep Throat, conclude most of their sales in pre-orders or immediately after release, at which point the market is primed for something else.

Another reason that porn publicity is disproportionately weighted before a movie comes out is that directors and performers don’t collect residuals.. That is why people like me got several press releases and photos even as Kiss Attack was in production.

It is almost anti-climactic when the movie hits shelves, because the combination of post-release ennui and inability to live up to hype conspire to hustle a movie into obscurity. It is the same in Hollywood, but in the smaller pool of porn, where there are fewer people making more movies, the vanishing effect can be dramatic unless a movie is exceptional.

Worse still, Kiss Attack, which was a movie with several great sex scenes (see my review and gallery), was shot for a studio that no longer exists. “Independent Adult Cinema” was an arm of Adam & Eve that got lopped off in a recent downsizing.

UPDATE: While there was a downsizing at Adam & Eve and while I had been told by a company employee from its North Carolina office that IAC was given the axe, Adam & Eve director and production guru Wit Maverick tells me (in the Coments section) that Independent Adult Cinema is alive and well and actively promoting Kiss Attack and “deserving projects.” I apologize if I have contributed to any confusion.

Then there’s the version issue. Director Batts will sell a cable version of Kiss Attack on Amazon starting in September (pre-order here) but the XXX version, with more profits going to Adam & Eve, is already in stores.

Finally, because IAC isn’t around anymore (see UPDATE, above), there will not be a Kiss Attack 2, which is unfortunate, because the original ends abruptly, with a strip-tease in an alley, and a “to be continued” tacked on. It’s like Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins with Sasha Grey as Wilford Brimley.

That said, Kiss Attack is worth seeing, and for almost none of the reasons proposed in its pre-street hyperbole. It is a photographically exquisite movie in places, especially in scenes with Grey and Vandella, and April Flores is always a pleasure to see.

Read the review and see a gallery here.

Previously: April Flores and Carlos Batts at Comic-Con; La Cholita in ink; Young Hollywood and the birth of the United States