Krystal Steal plays a young woman with deeply buried lust that hasn't been physically satisfied. Instead of actually getting laid, she peeps on her neighbors, Brittney Skye and Mickey G., as they fuck on a nearby deck. Later, she imagines being ravished by Jay Ashley, who plays a customer in the lingerie store in which she works. Unbeknownst to Krystal, Mickey G. notices her watching him fuck Brittney. He becomes enamored with her and sets up an elaborate plot to seduce her. So, with the help of a few of his friends, Mickey drugs and kidnaps Krystal. When she awakes, she finds herself bound in a room where she is forced to watch sex-slave Lezley Zen fuck Lee Stone. Soon, Krystal becomes part of the action&first as a stripper and later as a participant in a scene featuring a hot leather swing and lots of fantasy costumes.
If you regularly read my reviews, you'll know that I'm quite partial to Krystal Steal. In fact, I think she's among the prettiest girls currently in porn. Frankly, I badgered the good folks at Pleasure Productions until they sent me a review copy of the Shadowplay DVD (the movie has been out quite a while on VHS, but was just released on DVD in early July 2003). I was very excited about Krystal's first movie as a contract girl with Pleasure, especially after interviewing her for Adult Stars Magazine, and I highly anticipated Shadowplay's release. Sadly, this movie did not meet all my expectations. Don't get me wrong: Krystal looks fabulous. And, even better, she appears in every scene! Two scenes feature her as a sexual participant. However, Krystal observes, masturbates, or dances in the background during the other three scenes. It really was great to see her in more than one scene, as was the norm when she was a freelance performer. However, even though the sets and costumes are very hot (lots of leather as well as the aforementioned swing), the sex is couples-mild. That's OK, because the movie was designed for couples viewing. However, I was disappointed that Brittney Skye delivered a lukewarm--at best--scene with Mickey G. This is especially hard for me to understand because Brittney's one supercharged sex machine (just watch her scene in Shane's World's College Invasion to see what I mean). The remaining four scenes are good solid sex. There is nothing threatening (no anal, dps, or other rough-sex), so it should not offend your lover in a first-time porn experience. However, the scenarios, locations, sets, and wardrobe are very hot and are guaranteed to be exciting.
I accept the mild couple's-oriented sex as being the norm for that genre. After all, couples' films are legitimate and are big sellers. However, the terrible video made this movie a failure, at least in my opinion. Primarily, the video looks more like a third or fourth-generation VHS than a DVD. In other words, the image is grainy and blurry--like a low-resolution tape would be. To make matters worse, much of the video is way overexposed. Light areas in the image are blasted-out white, making the image way too contrasty. In fact, the contrast is so high that the image lacks sufficient shades of color: it appears to be what Photoshop calls a posterization! Yet, paradoxically, the shadows in the image appear to be too light: they're gray, not black. And, the color balance is out of whack: people are NOT supposed to be orange or magenta! I tried to give the video the benefit of the doubt. I searched my brain for an artistic reason why the image should be so blown-out. I couldn't conceive of an explanation. So, I'm forced to conclude that the video was shot by folks who either don't give a damn or don't know how to use their equipment. Another complaint: many of the segments were shot with a lens hood on the camera. This caused rounded black edges at the corners of the screen.
I question the legitimacy of calling this movie a "feature." There is very little dialog, and that dialog appears mostly at the end of the movie after the last sex scene. In fact, I would bet that all the dialog would fit on two sheets of copy paper. And, the "acting" during that dialog is stilted and unconvincing, especially that provided by Nikita Denise and Krystal Steal. I've seen both of them do better dialog in other movies. Maybe they weren't given the opportunity to shoot more than one or two takes.
Bottom line: I'm disappointed. I adore Krystal Steal and am very sorry to have to report negatively on her first contract movie. However, I don't lie. The sex is good couples' fare, the disk has nice extras, the locations and costumes are first class, but the video stinks.
