The Ultimate Fantasy

I'm not sure if it was salvageable but the ambitious (and likely expensive) ULTIMATE FANTASY was certainly sabotaged by employing one William Margold, he of the ubiquitous eyeglasses, smarmy attitude and generally annoying participation in umpteen XXX projects.

Margold heavily narrates the story, but in an MST3K fashion, mocking the action and characters. Jon Dough stars as a lawyer who we later learn is nicknamed The Wolf, but not before many scenes are ruined by dubbing in the loud sounds of a howling wolf on the soundtrack, competing with Margold's wise cracks and certainly justifying the existence of the mute button. As if this were not enough, occasional laugh-track laughter and sexual moaning sounds are also overdubbed.

For masochists like me who like to follow the storyline, we have busty ingénue Lisa Ann (this is a major early role in her career, long before she became queen MILF) searching for her missing sister, even bustier Nikki Sinn. Trail leads to Dough, the evil culprit who has brainwashed elder sister Nikki into sex slave/blind loyalty, while other unsavory types, notably typecast lesbian Porsche Lynn, are also up to no good.

Director Joe Robertson, who some audiences will know from his career nadir working with Ed Wood, makes this pointlessly pretentious with the use of title cards announcing the time and the place -totally unwarranted, but then so was Margold's verbal intervention and the sound EFX editor's intrusion as well.

Intended suspense is entirely missing, especially in a crucial scene where Nikki shows up performing an elaborate live sex show at a big party Lisa attends, yet supposedly Lisa doesn't recognize sis. This party is an excuse to trot out a motley crew of porn celebrities in cameo appearances including Fred J. Lincoln, Sharon Kane, Veronica Hart dressed as a caped superhero, Ashlyn Gere and even someone who I could swear was Serena (though I must be wrong, she having left the biz years earlier).

I especially liked Nikki's sexual performance including her anal specialty number, though her pained overacting as Dough's victim won't win any SAG award even in the parallel porn universe. Dough's smug, one-note thesping, bad, bad, all-bad guy, is poor, especially in light of the many interesting characterizations he's contributed over the years. It's fun to see Lisa Ann pretending to be the innocent 19-year-old heroine, most notably in a ridiculous scene where Dough has her act out, blow job and all, her memory of being abused. Before video's end she has blossomed from a plain Jane to the glamorous star we know so well.