Title: The Doll Underground Studio: Vivid-Alt Director: Eon McKai Cast: Pixie Pearl, Lexi Bell, Reagan Maddux, Presley Maddox, Herschel Savage, Alex Gonz, Daniel, James Deen Genres:: Alt-porn, Big Dicks, Girl/Girl, Natural breasts, Plot Condoms: No Reviewer: R.W. Hulme

Rating:

People have often blurred the lines between pornography and art, but few have done so quite as effectively as Eon McKai with the breathtakingly original Doll Underground. Produced and distributed by Vivid Alt – the ‘alternative’ line of Vivid porn aimed at fans of ‘alternative’ lifestyles and sexuality – Doll Underground takes its inspiration from the radical movements of the 70s, like Bill Ayer’s ‘Weather Underground’ and the Baader Meinhof gang in Germany. One of the characters is actually called ‘Bee Ayers,’ in a tip of the hat to her inspiration.  

The movie is visually stunning, filmed in a washed-out style reminiscent of low-budget European films from the 70s. This action is interspersed with 30-year-old footage from public information films, producing a rather disturbing but highly original feature that’s as much zero-budget arthouse cinema as hardcore pornography.

In the movie, the ‘Doll Underground’ is revealed to be a subversive propaganda movement, issuing clandestine communiqués to young women, encouraging them to throw off the shackles of their suburban lifestyle and embrace sexual and political independence.

“Buy nothing,” the mysterious woman behind the Doll Underground orders. “Owe nothing.” Although highly stylized and over the top, one suspects that Eon McKai actually believes that today’s young women might benefit from the ‘fictional’ message of the Doll Underground.

Onscreen, two girls decide to follow the Doll Underground’s message to ‘rise up’ and leave their suburban haven for the hard streets of Los Angeles. There they meet up with the leader of the Doll Underground and begin a subversive campaign to free young women from their matrimony to materialism.

Interspersed with scenes of bomb making and propaganda printing, you’ll be reassured to learn that the heroines of the Doll Underground don’t proceed with their plans without making time for some beautifully filmed sex scenes.

Our two runaways pleasure each other on a train on the way to rendezvousing with the Doll Underground. The leader of the movement sucks and fucks a prominent local businessman in order to ascertain information relevant to their next mission. The sex is moody, gritty and highly erotic; visually a world away from the slick, spot-lit style most modern porn is shot in.

But there’s so much more here than just some really hot sex. If you can look past the pornography, I think this DVD actually makes a rather valid sociological statement about today’s consumer culture and how it ensnares young women. At the end of the film, I’ll admit: I was a convert to the Doll Underground myself.

And just as there’s more to the Doll Underground than porn, there’s more to the DVD than just the highly original movie. The Doll Underground boxed set actually boasts three discs; two DVDs and a CD of the industrial soundtrack. The special features on the second DVD aren’t altogether sexy, but they include some great peeks into the thought process behind the Doll Underground; and if you like the eclectic, hardcore soundtrack of the DVD, you’ll probably dig the CD soundtrack of ‘communiqués.’

Overall, the Doll Underground winds up being more than just the sum of its parts. Blending porn with politics, sex with sociology and fucking with feminism, Eon McKai has produced a distinctive release that will really appeal to more cerebral consumers of adult movies.

That being said, fans of more traditional porn might wonder just what the hell is going on with the Doll Underground. Some of it appears wildly disjointed and some of the non-sexual scenes are shamelessly self-indulgent. There’s one chapter, ‘propaganda,’ which contains nothing but speeded-up footage of the Doll Underground inking countless posters. It goes on… and on… and on… Eventually, even my finger was inching towards the ‘skip’ button on my remote; and I studied French cinema at school!

But one of the reasons Doll Underground is so sexy is because it’s smart. Some real imagination and thought process went into producing this DVD. Doll Underground is sublimely sexy; and if you’re the kind of person who ‘gets’ what Eon McKai was aiming for with this release, I think you’re probably sexy by extension, too.