Skin Deep

Watching "Skin Deep" (generic title used for no less than 3 releases just in 2010 alone) from Viv Thomas struck me as requiring a new definition for plagiarism. Kendo delivers a pantomime porn feature virtually identical to a score of his daring! Media releases of the period, yet it bears the dreaded Viv Thomas logo. He can't be plagiarizing himself by definition, but dear Kenneth Docherty seems to have stolen from daring! what he previously made their house style.

After thanking God that this is not one of Viv's own "Eastern European sex workers have lesbian encounters" stinkers, I sat through 5 drowsy scenes of aloof studs and equally aloof gals deign to hump each other on various couches, while auteur Mr. K and his tiny staff (including femme acolyte and far superior director herself Lisa Loves womaning one of the cameras) move in for gynecological close-ups.

With no dialogue and an overly familiar library score (we get Mickey Mousing piano for a romantic moment or two), the visuals stress the cocks as well as an addiction to sexy hosiery, as Ken is a leg man for sure. The models (led by superstar Tarra White) from the former Warsaw Pact territories are lovely if uninvolving, and the studs perfectly bored, as the director insists on each displaying a sour mien. God forbid that any of that clichéd porno "chemistry" creep into the couplings. After watching 70 or so of these Docherty docudramas I've come to realize that he is a true self-acclaimed Artiste, unwilling to permit human emotion or even Adult Cinema's fake version of same, to disrupt his boring edifice of X-rated tableaux.

I hate to break it to you at this late date (in the twilight of your career) Ken: so-called porn directors who are actually just still photographers are a dime a dozen in Chatsworth, Miami, London, Paris, Prague and Budapest. So much for your pretensions of grandeur.