As an educationalist, I have always been interested in virtual reality technologies which are becoming an increasingly important part of modern life. Already we cannot conceive how commercial airline pilots or nuclear reactor operators could be trained without them. When more widely used for training truck drivers, they will relieve us from unnecessary congestion and pollution resulting from large trucks labeled "driver under instruction" regularly traversing our local bottlenecks. At home we already use computer software intended to help us plan the renovation and redecoration of or homes by giving us a picture of the likely results of adding windows, changing the location of our bathroom or kitchen, or simply redecorating in different styles and colours. So it was intriguing to see an advance review of this film, recently shown on local TV, which indicated that its theme was a public virtual reality saloon offering erotic style entertainments. Reference to IMDb showed that it had received a Users rating of six stars - unusually high for what was presumably a low budget soft porn production, but that (even after seven years) no viewer comments on it had been received. Hoping it would be much better than most of its kind, I decided to watch it. Unfortunately I found its six star rating even if real was totally virtual, and I decided to send my user comments to IMDb to warn other prospective viewers what to expect. The story is about two teenage lads and a girl visiting this establishment for the first time and deciding to sample some of the 'fantasies' on offer. Basically it shows them sitting at the VR booths, selecting the erotic scenario they choose, and then watching this unfold before their eyes. Although the surroundings are a little more plush, this so-called VR saloon offered little more than the coin operated mini-film booths which have existed in slot machine arcades in many big cities for almost 100 years.
Sex is not a spectator sport, and few things can get more boring than watching almost continuous sexual couplings permutated among a small cast of characters none of whom we ever get to know, or who ever seem to relate to each other in any meaningful way. It seems to be very difficult for makers of soft-porn films to provide the number of such couplings some viewers appear to expect and still avoid this problem. Even the simplest storyline takes time to develop and every character needs to become rounded before it is more than a cut-out. Sometimes this is not even attempted - instead such films present a series of totally unrelated sequences linked only by some impossibly tenuous thread (In one, a group of two or three girls watching a sports event, looked in turn at each of the players and commented "I wonder what he would be like in bed" - so introducing each new scene to be shown ). Here we basically have a film of this type which essentially has no storyline and rather inadequately developed characters. For me a fair IMDb rating for such films would usually be 1 star, raised to two if it was significantly better made than some of its contemporaries, or three if it was really exceptional in some respect. Here the various fantasy sequences are quite imaginatively costumed, as well as better acted, and filmed than is often the case; so I felt this film was quite enjoyable to watch and probably deserves a rating of up to three. Unfortunately, for much of the time it seemed like watching a movie made by College cinematography students, and put together as a class or graduation exercise with an almost zero budget. Ignoring copyright considerations (which might not be applicable in such circumstances if no public viewings were involved) a dozen or more four or five minute scenes could be culled from any number of recent erotic films to provide the fantasy sequences, and then simply linked by members of the class filming each other at computer workstations decked out a little to enable them to qualify as virtual reality booths. This would provide an almost identical viewing experience to 'Erotic Daydream' - although in fact a competent class of students would almost certainly improve on the actual film by showing fantasies actually being experienced by the customers sitting in the virtual reality booths, for example in the form of disembodied hands and arms caressing them or naked breasts hovering just in front of their face.
In retrospect I later realized that I had enjoyed watching this film more than many others of the same type. Perhaps my digestion was in better shape, but more likely this was because most of the cast managed to appear genuinely involved in creating a worthwhile, if simple, story relevant to us all today. For example, instead of jumping on each other as soon as opportunity allowed and starting to hump as vigorously as possible, they attempted to depict couplings developing in a meaningful way, by lovingly disrobing each other, with the clear recognition that their partners response was not taken for granted. This type of approach is unusual and I welcomed it. If it accounts for the high IMDb user rating, it should alert makers of such films to a call from many viewers to show their casts interacting personally and sexually as individuals - not just copulating. To me this film's high IMDb rating is a significant tribute to its cast and Director, but it does not change my position that any feature film should create a coherent story for featuring - Producers please note! .
Sex is not a spectator sport, and few things can get more boring than watching almost continuous sexual couplings permutated among a small cast of characters none of whom we ever get to know, or who ever seem to relate to each other in any meaningful way. It seems to be very difficult for makers of soft-porn films to provide the number of such couplings some viewers appear to expect and still avoid this problem. Even the simplest storyline takes time to develop and every character needs to become rounded before it is more than a cut-out. Sometimes this is not even attempted - instead such films present a series of totally unrelated sequences linked only by some impossibly tenuous thread (In one, a group of two or three girls watching a sports event, looked in turn at each of the players and commented "I wonder what he would be like in bed" - so introducing each new scene to be shown ). Here we basically have a film of this type which essentially has no storyline and rather inadequately developed characters. For me a fair IMDb rating for such films would usually be 1 star, raised to two if it was significantly better made than some of its contemporaries, or three if it was really exceptional in some respect. Here the various fantasy sequences are quite imaginatively costumed, as well as better acted, and filmed than is often the case; so I felt this film was quite enjoyable to watch and probably deserves a rating of up to three. Unfortunately, for much of the time it seemed like watching a movie made by College cinematography students, and put together as a class or graduation exercise with an almost zero budget. Ignoring copyright considerations (which might not be applicable in such circumstances if no public viewings were involved) a dozen or more four or five minute scenes could be culled from any number of recent erotic films to provide the fantasy sequences, and then simply linked by members of the class filming each other at computer workstations decked out a little to enable them to qualify as virtual reality booths. This would provide an almost identical viewing experience to 'Erotic Daydream' - although in fact a competent class of students would almost certainly improve on the actual film by showing fantasies actually being experienced by the customers sitting in the virtual reality booths, for example in the form of disembodied hands and arms caressing them or naked breasts hovering just in front of their face.
In retrospect I later realized that I had enjoyed watching this film more than many others of the same type. Perhaps my digestion was in better shape, but more likely this was because most of the cast managed to appear genuinely involved in creating a worthwhile, if simple, story relevant to us all today. For example, instead of jumping on each other as soon as opportunity allowed and starting to hump as vigorously as possible, they attempted to depict couplings developing in a meaningful way, by lovingly disrobing each other, with the clear recognition that their partners response was not taken for granted. This type of approach is unusual and I welcomed it. If it accounts for the high IMDb user rating, it should alert makers of such films to a call from many viewers to show their casts interacting personally and sexually as individuals - not just copulating. To me this film's high IMDb rating is a significant tribute to its cast and Director, but it does not change my position that any feature film should create a coherent story for featuring - Producers please note! .