Descent is an artistic hard-core video that originated from the star of the film Aiden Shaw's very own poetry. It's moody, surreal and very sexy. Director Steven Scarborough does a fabulous job of directing this all-star cast in some of the hottest sex put on video.
The video opens with a narrator introducing us to the story. Meanwhile, Shaw is running through the streets late at night trying to escape the madness. He hides behind a dumpster and is transported into some kind of parallel universe. Once there. he finds himself tied to a chair naked while someone shaves his head. Two onlookers are also tied, naked and gagged. Flashes of images from Shaw's subconscious appear as he and the three other men, played by Todd Gibbs, Chris Rock and Zak Anders, engage in some mind-blowing sex. This super sexy scene is filled with steamy blow jobs and deep penetrations and ends with them shooting their sticky loads on Shaw.
This next scene made me drool all over myself; it features Shaw entering a room where he sees himself in bed with Marcus Iron. (I've had that dream before.) The two hungry lovers ravage each other's body. Iron's shows off his beautifully cut body and his wonder tongue as he licks and sucks Shaw's rock-hard, uncut cock. Then the scene changes, and Iron is in an all-white room, stroking himself as he watches Shaw on a TV as he wonders aimlessly in an empty room. Shaw desperately tries to figure out what is happening to him, so when he sees a light bulb hanging from the ceiling, he begins to pull its cord.
Meanwhile, mega-hoties Jason Branch, Blake Harper and Marcus Iron are having one of the best threesome scenes I've ever seen. The three of them share so much heat and raw passion that the scene is almost too intense. (Make sure the rewind button on your VCR works; you'll need it!) As Harper and Blake pillage Iron's ass, flashes appear of Shaw pulling the cord until he finally reaches the end - only to find out that even though the light is on the cord is cut.
The last scene takes place in a monastery, where four monks, played by Nick Moore, Mark Mason, Damian Ford and Rick Allen, are chanting and walking around in their robes. Very creepy. Shaw sees them in their robes, then out of their robes and then an orgy begins. As the gorgeous men fuck each other with unbridled desire, Shaw flashes back to himself digging a grave and then lying in it. After the last monk cums, Shaw is transported, naked I might add, to a beautiful beach where he meets up with Iron. They kiss and embrace and then play in the ocean's waves, and his nightmare is over.
I think everyone will interpret this video differently, and not everyone will get it. It isn't for everyone, but I think the sex in this video could change anyone's mind. Director Scarborough manages to blend fetish with hard-core raw and nasty sex and romance into this hypersexual video. The production values alone are amazing. There's creative lighting and videography, creepy Gregorian Chant music, special effects and a narrator that sounds like the voice you hear as you enter The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland.
No matter what your tastes are, I'm pretty sure you'll find something that will get you hot in this video.
- Ricki Martinez
We have to say we respect Steven Scarborough for having the guts to experiment with the usual cliché porno format. "Descent" is quite artsy. In fact, it reminds us of gay porn's roots in underground films of the 1960s. Have you ever seen "Bijou," the Wakefield Poole classic of the early 1970s? Well, this is sort of like that, only perhaps more symbolic. Scarborough seems to be trying to set up the movie as a metaphor for death. Sex and death -- it wouldn't be the first time someone had made that equation.
The opening sequence shows Aiden Shaw racing through dark alleys as gloomy, quasi-religious music plays and we wonder if someone is really chasing him, or if he's just fleeing monsters of his own mind. Aiden makes "one last leap of faith," text that flashes on the screen reads. He jumps behind a dumpster. Yeah, that takes a lot of faith. Who knows what could be back there?
In this case, the magic dumpster somehow transports Aiden to what we guess is a sort of Limbo or Purgatory. There are a lot of pretty graphics and special visual effects montaging actors into fantastic landscapes. Most of Limbo, however, is blank, white, and brightly lit. We didn't know that Limbo was full of hunky men having sex, either. We're told that Aiden may get the "last, great fuck of his life."
But first, Aiden gets a haircut.
Yes, Limbo has a studly barber who ties you up and buzz-cuts your head ... while other studs wait tied up in the background, no less. Zak Anders is the hairy-chested, square-jawed barber. We really like him. He's very macho, and as we find out later, sexually versatile. He looks just like a Marine -- reminds us of porn great Glenn Swann, only butcher.
Pretty soon the sex begins. Aiden is serviced by Chris Rock, who enjoys blowing him and getting fucked. Zak is doing it with Todd Gibbs. You may remember him as the blond lead from "The Road Home" (Hot House). He's absolutely perfect as blond boys go. His body is even beefier than before. Todd and Zak do a nice flip-flop. They're an excellent pairing: Todd is incredibly fair and blond in contrast to the dark, brooding Zak.
But don't be fooled by this straightforward description. The scene is daringly edited, with lots of jump-cuts from one couple to the next, and from one moment to the next. Some of the Todd-Zak sequences are filmed in black-and-white, and the whole scene (and much of the rest of the flick) looks as though it was made on film rather than video. It has an interesting visual texture that the Emperor liked. By the end of the scene, the three guys have cum all over the tied up Aiden, as well as Aiden and Todd cumming previously.
More Gregorian chant music.
Then Aiden is having his "feast of pleasure" with Marcus Iron in an old-fashioned bed in the middle of a big white nothingness. This is a pretty hot scene, as both men seem really horny for each other and Marcus takes Aiden's fat dick down to the base, both sucking and fucking. That Marcus is a real little sex machine. What's really nice here is the unobtrusiveness of the very subtle music (not really music -- more like sound effects). You can really hear all the slurps and sighs, and it's very erotic. The sex is more mutual here as Aiden gives a few slurps on Marcus's dick, too. There's plenty of kissing and writhing of bodies, too. The fucking is incredible -- Aiden literally pounds it into Marcus, and Marcus takes it all. We were afraid that rickety old bed was going to collapse. You can even hear the springs squeaking. Anyhow, Aiden fucks him five ways from Friday before they cum.
Aiden's in another white room.
This one has a big light bulb with what looks like urine dripping into it. (It's either that, or Mountain Dew.) Marcus is whacking off watching a television screen that's showing Aiden pace about the room. This room has been thoughtfully equipped with a chair, but Aiden gets curious and starts pulling on a rope that's dangling from the ceiling. He pulls and pulls, and the rope comes down and down. We then see a scene with Marcus, Jason Branch and Blake Harper. Everybody fucks and sucks with gay abandon, and since all three of these guys are some of the best, you can bet it's good. Blake does most of the fucking, and, Jason, interestingly, does a lot of the bottoming, but everybody takes a turn in both roles. There's plenty of kissing here, too, as well as the nice sex noises we noted in the previous scene. There are daisy-chain fucks and numerous other combinations. Everyone cums. This is Limbo, after all.
Meanwhile, Aiden has pulled down a huge pile of rope, but gotten nowhere.
More Gregorian chants and bizarre alien landscapes with abstract geometric forms. A bunch of naked men are on top of an industrial-looking building in the sunshine. The scene starts with Nick Moore trading blows with and bottoming for studly Mark Mason. We also see Clay Powell sucking, getting sucked and getting fucked by hairy, beefy Damian Ford. He has a muscular daddy look here. Then we get a final sequence where Aiden digs his own grave and lies in it, intercut with monk-like guys surrounding the prone Aiden in a psychedelically altered image. Aiden then screams his way out of a big white box, and finds himself in a beautiful paradise, where Marcus joins him on a lovely beach. The two walk off into the sunset, and surf, together.
Hey, a happy ending!
We prefer not to try to get too specific with symbolic interpretations. We rather liked the blending of creative visual effects and editing with our sex. In the long run, "Descent" will probably be seen as a classic because of its interesting return to the visual techniques and moody narratives of underground film. And the director's expanded edit made better an already great flick.
DVD features (two-disc set): Stereo sound; the full-length director's expanded edit on Disc No. 1 (and bonus material on Disc No. 2); easy-to-use menus; a scene-by-scene chapter breakdown (including a cum-shot compilation -- where the cum-shot footage is edited into one scene for immediate viewing); a music video (several surrealistic sequences edited into a nice montage); model bios; slide-show galleries (individual model and hardcore); trailers; and no regional coding (playable worldwide).
A DVD Review by The Porn Emperor