Sextool

Tableau of oddball sex scenes as presented to a guy at a party in the Hollywood Hills. Since this is Halsted, most of it centers around S&M or domination / submission, but really it's not all that different from the structure of a lot of more standard porn films of the area - various vignettes spun out from a centralizing location or element. What distinguishes SEXTOOL is a greater attention to detail in the production - costuming and, in particular, score are excellent - as well as a focus on transgression. Despite a pretty grotty early encounter centered around a wire bunk bed frame (youch!), I don't think the film is quite as shocking or discomfiting as it thinks it is - perhaps more so at the time, but some of the macho posturing begins to wear thin after a while. One really bizarre number seems to be inspired by CABARET, and Halsted contributes another heavy abuse session with gorgeous paramour Joseph Yale that climaxes in an unpleasant onscreen nipple piercing (eek!), but it certainly can't match the sublime erotic intensity of their encounter in L. A. PLAYS ITSELF. Overall, SEXTOOL is well mounted, but I'm not really sure what it's trying to say. If the thesis, per the tagline on the poster, is "Use/Abuse Everyone/Everything," I don't think the film quite proves it.