I was batting 2 for 2 in that the last couple of adult shoots I visited got raided. There was the Candy Apples gangbang starring the LA Vice unit. Then there was the memorable Perverted Stories octopus shoot featuring Aspen Brock, Buck Adams, two cop cars and the mysterious insect bite that everyone thought was Buck's heart attack.
Now, if anyone has a body that promotes heart attacks or deserves to get raided, it's Zoe. Sin City's press package describes her thusly: "she has more curves than Malibu Beach in July". Not knowing exactly how the topography of Malibu Beach differs in July as opposed to, let's say, October, you'd think there's gotta be a reason for that particular distinction, but none is offered. Her biog also makes mention of the fact that Zoe grew up in Texas. "It was a ghost town," she smiles. "Tumbleweeds and tarantula crossings." Zoe's an army brat which probably explains why a family would elect to grow up among tumbleweeds and tarantulas. "My family's in every branch of the service," she notes.
The luscious blond package had just signed a contract with Sin City, and, before the ink got to dry, Zoe was scheduled to star in her first film for Michael Raven. The movie's called Captive. It's about the white slave trade in Tokyo; and the big scene, which was shot last Sunday night, the final day of a three-day shoot, called for Zoe, in an upbeat ending, to put six slugs, give or take, into Evan Stone. Stone plays a white slaver and all around bad guy who wears sunglasses, a Kirk Douglas cleft chin and a shoulder holster on his left side, even though he's right handed. In one amusing aside, Raven asks Stone if the gray slacks he's wearing are expensive. Stone gives him a look as if to say, you think I bought these in Mr. Happy's Thrift Pants Emporium?
"Well, yeah," Stone answers in a hesitatingly sort-of, kind-of-way. Raven then explains the gag which calls for Stone to be squibbed. Stone, a little wary, says nobody told him about that. Raven tells him not to worry, that the "blood" probably won't screw up his wardrobe.
Raven says his choice of storyline and locale was dictated by the fact he got "lucky" and got hold of some stock, aerial footage of Tokyo. "We'll go second unit next week and go pick up some Little Tokyo stuff," says Raven who goes on to explain that the Sin City soundstage doubled for a complex which houses an underground club along with a dormitory and programming room where women are brainwashed. For that matter, Raven could have shot at the old O.J. estate in Brentwood. Zoe, Raven notes, escapes the complex which brings us to the big showdown outdoors in what's made to look like a junkyard.
G. Ross: "There's a lot of gun play. Do you think adult video is finally accepting this?"
Raven: "Some broadcasters won't. Playboy really won't buy this, but The Erotic Network buys all rights from Sin City. They love it. On the hard version, I can pretty much put anything in there that I want. For some of the cable markets, some of the European markets, they like it toned down a little bit. We'll shoot two versions, one will show the impact of the bullets, one where you won't. We're covering it both ways so we're safe. But I think people like to see that. As long as it's not gore and makes sense. It's never violence against women. Zoe's wasting a guy that's holding her enslaved."
But before we get to the shoot-out and Stone's imminent dry cleaning bill, time is devoted to various pick-up shots that have Zoe, dramatic gun- flashing pauses and all, either running after, or away from Stone through menacing, film noir-lit corridors, Jack Remy being the cinematographer.
From all the sprinting she's doing, particularly in very high-heeled lace-up black boots, Raven might want to re-think the title and call it Zoe's Run and give it a fetish/sci-fi twist. In fact, Logan's Run is one of Raven's favorites and acknowledges some of it's influence in the making of Millenium, his latest release which stars Katja Kean. "I thought Katja did really well in that," Raven says. "She had no acting experience." Of course Raven is quick to point out, too, that Kean's looks quickly overcome the lack-of-experience barrier. "You can't stop looking at her. I caught myself staring most of the time." Raven says Kean is in town for three weeks and is shooting three features including one which she did with Zoe this past week called Lipstick.
With Captive being his fourth FILM, Raven says the actual gun battle will take about 20 minutes to shoot, despite a glorious amount of time-consumption in setting it up. "All this shit for 20 minutes," Raven muses. "It occupies maybe five minutes of screen time. We're getting a lot of production value out of it. We'll get some nice high shots and tracking shots. This whole sequence is actually intercut throughout the whole movie. She's telling the story about this complex and her experience. The movie starts and begins in this little courtyard."
Zoe, who's first-ever feature was Blow It Out Your Ass for John T. Bone, says her sex scene in Captive with Eric Price to the accompaniment of three other women licking her body is probably the hottest thing she's done so far. "It's like a fantasy scene," she says. "It starts off with three couples having sex in a club where I was dancing earlier. I'm drugged up. First, I'm watching the scene, then I'm in it. I got really turned on."
"It's been long hours and everything, but this has been a lot of fun," she adds. "It's pretty good. The cast is great, and the other people that I've worked with, talent-wise, are great. Tina Cheri was here Saturday night doing a scene. She's really nice." Even though she's got two years in, but only about ten features under her belt, Zoe says the performing part is easier but more of a challenge. "I actually get to act," she says. "It's different after doing the same thing for two years. I'm not as nervous as to when I first got in and was REALLY nervous and didn't know what-in-the-world I was doing."
