The Sting

It is the sameness, a one-track approach, that marks Bree Mills/Craven Moorehead's popular series "Pure Taboo", which I watch on DVD two-fer compilations, waiting for some quality to emerge from the chaff.

This pair is predictably dark, but the misogyny and "young girl abused" content is wearying. The title segment has Gina Valentina quite convincing as an overly made-up young hooker (not much of a stretch for the star of many a jail-bait role) who is picked up on the street by Charles Dera and taken to a crummy motel managed by Michael Vegas.

I expected some kink in the Bates Motel tradition but instead is a dreary saga of Gina abused by Dera, ending in a creampie, only to have Vegas show up for sloppy seconds and another creampie. It's a predictable story line and the emphasis on mistreating and humiliating lovely Valentina seems more an exercise in Bree's misandry ("see how cruel and horrid these men are") than anything dramatic.

Supporting program "Mr. Nice Guy" veers into horror territory, as Abella Danger (oddly outfitted wearing spectacles for no reason) goes home from a club as a pick-up with Seth Gamble, only interested in having sex with him. Seth seems -as the title would suggest - more sensitive, almost angering Danger with his solicitousness (while she wants to cut to the chase and get down right away), but of course there's a dark ending a comin'.

The co-directors Bree and Craven have the opportunity to create a classic piece of horror here, but muff it, with the final shot of a surprise ending so sloppily directed that I had to go into reverse and even zoom on my DVD to figure out what they were driving at.