Kink Flick Review: Let Me In

Let Me In is a horror film. However, the movie’s depiction of an unusual love also makes it kink. Kinda sorta.

Owen is a boy on the cusp of adolescence. He’s a lonely voyeur, curious about sexuality, and bullied by his classmates. He befriends an odd, barefoot girl, immune to the cold. Abby tells him she’s not a girl. She isn’t. She’s an immortal who needs blood to live.

Let Me In has been interpreted by several reviewers as a vampiric take on Romeo and Juliet. I don’t. The love these two share isn't fully realized, nor will it be. However, their relationship has one critical component of love: fierce and true loyalty.

The film is extraordinary, but it isn't perfect. The bullying scenes are heavy-handed. Why, for example, are all of Owen’s twelve-year old classmates so much more physically mature? The locale and time choice are also bizarre. Why the eighties? So Boy George can sing “Do you really want to hurt me?” in the background? And why does the film take place in Los Alamos? The real town of Los Alamos could beat vampires in a battle of the weird, but in this movie, the town is just a snowy backdrop.

One of the most moving scenes occurs after Abby reveals her true nature. Owen is terrified. “Is there evil?” Owen asks his parents. Significantly, his parents don't reply.

The film doesn't answer that question, either. Let Me In offers clues about Owen’s future with Abby. The ending left me feeling ambivalent. I pondered it long after the film was over.

Kink Flick Review: The Big Easy

This 1987 movie is not strictly a kink flick, but it is an erotic romance-- pretending to be a suspense.

The story takes place in New Orleans, (the "Big Easy"). The hero Remy, played by Dennis Quaid, is a half Irish-half Cajun detective. He is properly handsome and cocky. Sadly, his accent is weird and annoying, making him great to look at, but hard to listen to. His adversary, Anne, played by the gorgeous Ellen Barkin, is the the assistant DA. She's out to clean up cop corruption.

Police corruption is prevalent and ingrained. Even the good cops turn a blind eye to the "widows and orphan's fund". That casual attitude changes when a few bad cops take the criminal enterprise to a whole new level.

The NO background is delicious and engaging. (Though Ellen Barkin jogging in her short shorts in the humidity and heat seems both gratuitous and unrealistic.) The sound track is wonderful, with a nice sampling of Cajun and Zydeco.

The sexual chemistry between Anne and Remy is blisteringly hot--even when they don't actually do the deed. Their passion is palpable. Yet the seduction is slow and easy, creating a sizzling tension. Erotic movie scenes don't get better than this.

Kink Flick Review: Y Tu Mama Tambien

A friend recommended this 2002 movie as one of the best menage films. It is, in reality, a superior coming-of-age tale.

The film introduces us to two callow, randy young Mexican men. The movie stumbles when it dwells on demonstrating just how callow and randy. When the boys finally take the beautiful "older" woman Louisa on a road trip to find a mythical beach, the movie finds its groove.

As they travel, Louisa becomes a mentor to the boys, helping them to become men--primarily in the sexual arena. If you're familiar with the archetypes in the Hero's Journey, the film's ending will not surprise you.

There are many sex scenes in the movie, and one of them is menage. In the unrated version, this three-way union is discrete. The sex isn't especially arousing, as sex is merely another form of communication.

The cinematography is spectacular. At first, the filming is voyeur-like and distancing. As the characters become more real to each other, the camera-work gets more intimate. The movie is subtitled. The dialog is truly wonderful, though embellished with a whole lot of "fucks". A narrator mainly functions to provide the socio-politico-economic background. I could have done without the interruption.

Kink Flick Review: Secretary

Secretary is a film about a quirky, somewhat disturbing romance. A young woman lands a job as a typist for a lawyer. He gives her some unusual assignments—and punishes her if she fails. She relishes the kinky interactions. After a bump or two in the relationship road, they fall in love, get married and keep the kink alive.

Many, many BDSM stories use this movie as a template. That's not always a good thing.

The office worker who enjoys a Secretary-style BDSM fling with her superior is now a fictional staple. A few recent examples of “boss” BDSM stories include: Punishing Pansy by P. Friday, Heidi and the Kaiser by Selena Kitt, Beck and Call by Abby Gordon, Confessions of a Submissive by Claire Thompson, and Office Slave by J.W. McKenna. (I have written one of these tales too, but I’ll save that discussion for another post.)

Lee, the typist in Secretary, is an insecure, unhappy young woman. She’s a cutter. She goes from the nut-house to typing school, and then to submissive-land. That bugs me. The subtext is: a girl has to be crazy to get involved in BDSM.

Tymber Dalton’s popular book, The Reluctant Dom, also has a cutter character. She “heals” through BDSM. I think that’s crazy. A Dominant can't fix a person who self-mutilates. I recently read a blog defending Tymber’s book. The blogger explained she’d much rather see a cutter being cured by a flogging than fixed by drugs or psychotherapy. Um-kay. The problem is this: beat-down therapy happens only in fiction.

The lawyer in Secretary is a creative Top/Dom. That's fun to watch. Unfortunately, he believes his perverse activities are despicable. Crazy Lee is far more comfortable with her kink than he is. Of course, she has to use some BDSM self-talk tapes to get that way.

Secretary gives us a mish-mash of nearly every sort of kink interaction. A little D/s, a bit of S & M, some bondage, a lot of spanking, a smattering of uber control, a scene of pony play, and quite a lot of SAM (smart ass masochist) behavior.

There's only one thing in the Secretary kink smorgasbord I find authentic: BDSM is portrayed as a game. Too bad this message gets obscured by all that self-loathing and healing.