I had the opportunity to see Eyewitness Production's latest, Now Hiring, not too long ago. There are a lot of things I like about EWP as is evident by my past postings singing the praises for the company. Contradictory to the praise though is the fact that they choose to formulize their videos in a way so a lot of it doesn't do very much for me, such as keeping their models fully or near fully dressed throughout. With that said I really wasn't expecting very much that would interest me. In fact the only reason I wanted to see the video was to check out their other hot models Chelsea and Deborah.
Right off the bat I'll start by saying it was a mixed bag partly due to the reason mentioned above. EWP has great photography and utilize bondage and torture well in their other video Deadly Laundry, which I thought was a very good video. The photography is a great as ever; in fact the first hanging scene looks almost seamless from when the noose is first put on to when she is hung thanks to the editing and special effects. The torture, however, was almost non existent in this one other than a drilling of the teeth sequence at the end. And after viewing a great performance by Olivia in Deadly Laundry the acting, with the exception of Chelsea's very good performance (due to her expressive face) in the third sequence, was very weak in my opinion. Both Deborah and Olivia seemed uninspired during their takedown scenes where each is strangled to unconsciousness. Deborah spends most of the time pushing at her chair and kicking before finally ending up on the floor some several minutes later while Olivia does the same while staying in her chair throughout. Come on...you're being strangled...I think you'd do a little more than push on your chair and kick your feet a little. You'd end up fighting, and at the very least you'd roll out of your chair to try and get out of the grip.
Deborah is the star of the first segment. She's very hot looking with long red hair to her ass (Hair freaks will love her). After several minutes of hanging, and I mean sev-er-al!, she is stripped naked. Purpose???? You got me. Her attacker strips her naked and that's it. The camera just lingers on her nude, dead body. The way the camera just lingers to me is like the cameraman's equivalent to the actress looking in the camera. There's no point to it. The attacker just strips her and does nothing...there's no point to the shot.
The next segment stars one of my favorites, Olivia. She wearing a blonde wig in this one as Ralphus had mentioned in his review earlier. Olivia makes the perfect victim. A perfect body. A perfect face. And she has certain cuteness about her despite her drop dead gorgeous looks. That's what's so frustrating, all this perfection and you never get to see it in its whole, just bits and pieces. After her uninspired takedown she is torturously hung by first starting out in a hog-tie, then the cord is cut allowing her feet to drop as she gets a short reprieve. She is then pulled up to struggle as she is allowed to barely touch the floor with the points of her shoes. What follows is another long drawn out hanging of several minutes.
The third segment is by far the best acted. It stars Chelsea who is attacked as she watches a video of the first two hangings. The attacker comes though the TV, attacks and strangles her to unconsciousness. She is then tied and pulled onto her coffee table in what I thought was going to be a rape scene as her legs were spread while unconscious. Instead the only real torture sequence of the tape take place here as her teeth are drilled when she comes to. She is then strangled as the video comes to a conclusion.
Like I said, I wasn't really expecting much due to a difference in tastes. But despite that, I felt that this was a major step backwards. The story line is held together by the thinnest of threads in my opinion. It might as well have been pieced together from bits rather than with a central story in mind. It really reminded me of the Necrobabes formula of short clips rather than story. Special effects can only take you so far. You eventually need a storyline. Battlefield Earth as an example. I never heard anyone knocking the special effects...but the story sucked and therefore bombed. I hope this is not what they aspire to be.
I frequent the EWP forum a lot and it's full of the same posters continually telling EWP how great they are. Few in number but the majority of the board. They want things to stay as they are. They want longer hanging, they want this, they want that. They want pretty much for things to stay static and not allow EWP to change or grow or evolve. Anyone who posts a contrary opinion or thought gets put down or cussed out. I realize hanging is what they do but it's obvious that they are guilty of wanting to please, what to me, seems like the few. Long hangings...long to the point of overkill. I kept on thinking all right already. What's that the old adage about the actor or athlete reading and believing their own press clippings?
Just my opinion but this one had very little for me except frustration.