Perhaps the indifferent gods stood by while the Persians killed their husbands, but at least “The Four” still have their nipples.
Studio: NinnWorx/Adam & Eve
Director: Michael Ninn
Starring: Brea Bennett, Renee Perez, Nikki Kane, Cassidey, Jennifer Dark, Marco Banderas, Jana Jordan, Dirty Harry, Charles Dera, Sledge Hammer, Veronica Jett, Amber Rayne, Maya Gates, Reno, Alexis Love, Tristan Kingsley
“The Four,” Michael Ninn’s long-awaited pornographic tale of what happened after the Battle of Thermopylae, is a 4-disc set worth owning. Why? Because it’s way more than just Xerxoff material.
Shot in 2007, “The Four” takes the Bullet Time, greenscreens, and arterial spray common to “Gladiator,” “The Matrix,” and “Spartacus: Blood And Sand” and parks them right at the hot gates of Brea Bennett, Cassidey, and Jennifer Dark, among others.
Of course, it is “300” that is the basis for “The Four,” but Ninn’s movie is not a parody. Sherry Ziegelmeyer’s script finds Queen Gorgo (Brea Bennett) lamenting the recent death of her husband, Leonidas (Charles Dera) by the armies of preening Persian Xerxes (Marco Banderas). She and her three compatriots seek revenge.
Granted powers (for a price) by the syphilitic gods-proxy Ephor (Dirty Harry), The Four march to Persia to confront Xerxes, each embarking on an erotic-byproduct vision quest on the way.
With a pounding, Nine Inch Nails-style soundtrack by Loren Alexander, “The Four” plays like a video game crossed with a libidinous fan fiction LiveJournal.
Its Achilles heel may be a somewhat repetitive voiceover, the floridness of which stands in contrast to the improvised dialogue of the sex scenes; women who were a moment ago gliding in slow motion and buffeted by wind machines are now shrieking “You like that pussy?!”
Review continues after gallery:
Beyond its value as a standalone piece of erotic art, however, “The Four” is an example of Things Ain’t How They Used To Be.
Ninn’s movie was the result of a once-promising relationship with a strip club chain that will remain nameless. The deal went south, court battles ensued, hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent, and now, half a decade later, a generation of porn performers has passed.
Ninn last year won back the rights to his own work, and Adam & Eve stepped in to release this sprawling epic, which couldn’t have been made today and has not a single Pizza Delivery Guy in the dramatis personae.
So each copy of “The Four” is steeped in as much recent porn history as it is with shreds of Ninn’s soul. If that doesn’t appeal to you as a scholar, then you can console yourself with dangerous, naked Brea Bennett, Nikki Kane, Renee Perez, Jana Jordan et al getting in swordfights.
As personal favorite Cassidey says in her Behind the Scenes interview, “We’re just horny widows.”
“The Four” would, of course, look great on Blu-ray, but Ninn says that is up to Adam & Eve.
“I don’t know how the guys with the whiteboards feel,” he says.
Buy “The Four” here
Previously on Porn Valley Observed: Michael Ninn—Two trucks, three years, “The Four”
See also: Adam & Eve, Michael Ninn
Gram, is Blu-ray porn stalling? I’d buy all my porn on Blu-ray–as I now do all my Hollywood movies–if porn BD releases were relatively as common and price-aligned as are major studio releases. Once you’ve seen a really well-shot and properly encoded (etc) HD porn movie on one of Sony’s magical discs, DVDs just no longer hold quite the same appeal! Do we as a society just not care that much about the visual quality of our porn?
Digital Playground (to my knowledge) now releases all their movies in double Blu-ray/standard def packages, which I think is a great idea. But if I could imagine a world where I didn’t get porn sent to me for free, I’m not sure I’d care too much if something were on Blu-ray; if I’m only going to watch it for three minutes, I don’t want it to take three minutes to load…
Three minutes? You need to upgrade your firmware.