Retromedia presents

The Erotic Escort Company (2004)

Mandy: Did he stiff you?
Candy: Yeah, a couple of times. And I didn't get paid either.- Beverly Lynne, Stacy Burke

Stars: Beverly Lynne, Stacy Burke, Cailey Taylor
Other Stars: Michelle Bauer, Jay Richardson, John Swipe, Brad Bartam, Anastasia Pierce
Director: Nicholas Medina

MPAA Rating: Not Rated for nudity and sexual situations
Run Time: 01h:16m:07s
Release Date: 2004-07-06
Genre: late night

Style Grade	Substance Grade	Image Transfer Grade	Audio Transfer Grade	Extras Grade
D+	D+	B	B-	D

 

DVD Review

Here's one of those out of sorts titles: a mindless bit of titillation and carefully choreographed sex that seems to only exist to be shown on late night cable. Now I do love a good nudity-filled yarn as much as the next guy, but The Erotic Escort Company only seemed capable of delivering the equivalent of pointlessly humping my leg for almost 80 minutes with no acceptable payoff.

The plot centers around three "beautiful college dropouts," along with a slightly dim male pal, who have to come up with a successful business plan in two weeks, or face permanent expulsion from their university. The ground rules state no prostitution—but it wouldn't be much of a romp if clothes didn't hit the floor and finely-honed bodies began to perform a variety of moan-filled encounters, and that's pretty much what makes up the majority of The Erotic Escort Company.

Beverly Lynne, Stacy Burke, and Cailey Taylor are the three blonde college gals, and director Nicholas Medina leads them through an assortment of trysts and couplings, staging the lustful mergers in locker rooms, on a table top, and even in jail, all leading towards a big, soapy carwash finale. While some of these scenes do seem to almost want to erupt into all-out XXX acrobatics, the sex has all of the hardcore naughtiness replaced by those clever camera angles and slow pans that just barely miss revealing any actual, ahem, linking. They're nude more often than not, and so I suppose Medina is delivering pretty much what he is supposed to. Two of three female leads look and act like seasoned, artificially-endowed adult performers, so much so that seeing them dressed seemed more unnatural than seeing them nude.

There are a couple of curious things about this particular DVD, the first being that one of B-movies finest scream queens, Michelle Bauer, has nothing but a small, nudity-free role here in Medina's film, and having her play her part for laughs seems even more ridiculous than having her stay fully clothed (except for a quick scene in a red negligee). It's a little deceptive to trot her out for cheap laughs, when it is an undisputed fact that she could teach the likes of Burke and Taylor a thing or two about the whole genre.

The second is that the film is presented in something called Hypno Vision, which is fancy talk for flashing random phrases—apparently designed to subliminally instill some kind of lusty thoughts—just before and during the sex scenes. I'm not sure if it worked subliminally, but I had to really put my frame advance through a workout even to land on a few of these gems. I might not even have noticed these quick bits of mind-controlling wisdom had there not been an intro by Retromedia's ubiquitous Miss Kim, who reminds us that we will be unable to not think about "boobies...lots of boobies."

Talk about weird science.

Rating for Style: D+
Rating for Substance: D+

 

Image Transfer

	One
Aspect Ratio	1.33:1 - Full Frame
Original Aspect Ratio	yes
Anamorphic	no

Image Transfer Review: The movie itself may not be so great, but this is not a bad looking transfer from Retromedia on this particular title. It has that shot on digital video look to it, but colors are noticeably bright, with ample examples of evenly rendered natural fleshtones. I wasn't aware of any debris or dirt, and the print didn't exhibit any significant flaws at all.

Image Transfer Grade: B
 

Audio Transfer

	Language	Remote Access

Audio Transfer Review: Audio is presented in a clean 2.0 stereo mix, with an understandable lack of any rear channel activity. Dialogue is clear, as are the corresponding moans of pleasure. Let's face it, your not watching this one to showcase your home theater.

Audio Transfer Grade: B- 

Disc Extras

Static menu with music
Scene Access with 6 cues and remote access
1 Original Trailer(s)
Packaging: Amaray
Picture Disc
1 Disc
1-Sided disc(s)
Layers: single

Extra Extras:

1. Stills

Extras Review: Not much here other than a theatrical trailer and a brief Stills Gallery. The disc is cut into 6 chapters, with no subtitle options.

Extras Grade: D
 

Final Comments

The biggest crime here is having scream queen and all-around goddess Michelle Bauer relegated to a small comic relief role as a frumpy school marm, which in my mind is just an unforgivable offense. There is, however, plenty of soft-core couplings (and a threeway or two) that make you think you're seeing more than you are, so if you like your cable porn sanitized for your protection, you'll be in hog heaven.

Rich Rosell 2004-07-14