Home Sweet Home

Two lousy Pure Taboo episodes on DVD, reflecting poor direction and lazy writing.

For the title vignette Writer-director Seth Gamble had the germ of a good idea for this story of criminal couples, but opted for unbelievable behavior, spoiling the Pure Taboo vignette.

Segment opens with a cryptic shot, showing money and valuables, providing a clue not resolved till the end of the story. Next we see a mature couple, Reagan Foxx and Ken Feels arriving at a home filled with moving boxes yet to be unpacked. Ken finds no food in the cupbaord so he heads out to buy some for dinner. On the road, against his better judgment he picks up a pair of young hitchhikers (Liz Jordan and Tyler Cruise) and brings them home with him, much to the chagrin of Reagan who is immediately suspicious of the two vagabonds (the viewer has reason to be suspicious, too, as they both remove their wedding rings during the car ride, and pretend to be siblings).

A modest dinner Reagan has prepared from stuff she found in the kitchen is a big flop, as everyone is uneasy and hardly touch their food. Ken has invited the young couple to stay the night, making Reagan even angrier. When the kids go upstairs to their guest room, Reagan blows up at Ken, and he gets just as angry, leaving in a huff.

No surprise when Liz and Tyler turn out to be thieves, and Liz looks through Reagan's belongings while the older woman sleeps on a couch/ She's caught in the act, and suddenly tough-gal Reagan insists on sex from the young girl - causing a suspenseful story to fall apart. Of course Tyler finds them humping and joins in for a threesome. When Ken finallly arrives back home, the final twist is fun but by then the action is too aribitrary to be believed.

Seth has recently added writing/directing to his acting career, but needs to do some serious woodshedding if he wants to be taken seriously behind the camera.

For "A Lie of Omission", Lapis Afterglow wrote and the team of Siouxsie Q and Michael Vegas directed this subpar Pure Taboo exercise, lacking credibility throughout.

It has a sustained sour mood, with a story premise that simply doesn't work. Ken Feels plays a bitter boyfriend who seeks sexual revenge against his lovely girlfriend (Charlie Forde) because she never told him about a lesbian fling she had back in her college days. She comes home to find photos of her and ex-gal pal Dana Vespoli displayed all over the place, taken from her laptop by an angry Ken.

He confronts her for lying about her past, "a lie of omission", but the real bad news for her is that he's brought Dana home to confront her. She's still angry after all these for Charlie walking out on her, and both aggrieved parties demand sex from Charlie then and there, as payback.

This humiliating scene is not credible, as Charlie makes love to Dana and then has a three-way with Ken, directed as just three sex workers being sexy for the camera but feigning dislike for each other at the same time. Unhappy ending is designed (as so many Pure Taboo vignettes are) to leave the viewer in a bad mood.