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Future Darkly: Pandemic

Future Darkly: Pandemic

Running Time 147 Min.
Directors Michael Vegas, Siouxsie Q, Bree Mills
Company Pure Taboo
Distribution Company Pulse Distribution
Cast Cherie DeVille, Jake Adams, Lola Fae, Scarlit Scandal, Lucky Fate (fka Lucky Fae) - EMPTY
Non-Sex Roles Dick Chibbles, Aaliyah Love, Michael Vegas, Dani Daniels, Ana Foxxx, Carter Cruise, Siouxsie Q, Serene Siren, Manny Bucks
Critical Rating AAAA 1/2
Genres Drama, Editor's Choice, Episodic

Rating

Synopsis

Four stories of sex, loneliness and hope in the these disease-ridden times.

Reviews

Four pandemic-themed erotic featurettes. 

After a moment of reverie with an online serenity guru, Scarlit Scandal is summoned by text messages: "Hubby//Can you help me, honey?/I have to pee so bad." She suits up: grey sweats, goggles, paper mask, transparent face shield, earplugs, pink rubber gloves. The camera does a slow ominous truck toward a door with an OSHA-style NOTICE MEDICAL ISOLATION sign as Scandal comes out with a tray of barely-eaten food, the ominous sound of chest-heaving coughing behind her. She scrapes the food into a red hazmat bag and scrubs the dishes and silverware, discarding the disposable PPE and scrubbing her hands as she counts down the 20 seconds. When deliveryman Jake Adams comes to the door, she flirtatiously smiles at him through a window, and when he drops his mask to smile back she sighs. When he comes back another day, she runs out to get the package, still clad in lingerie—but he hasn’t left yet. As she improvises a mask with her hands, he comes on strong ("I'm tested every day. And you have to be negative...") so Scandal runs upstairs and locks hubby in his room, then invites Adams inside. Next day, when there's a jaunty knock-knock-knock on Scandal's door, she gets a disappointing surprise. 

Michael Vegas returns from a shopping trip (TP, hand sanitizer, gloves, antiseptic wipes) and is disinfecting his purchases when his mother calls him on his computer. "It's been so long since I've heard from you. I'm worried about you being alone. It would be better if you had somebody." She offers to hook him up with a dating service, but he's not interested. "I'm doing okay." But later, he looks for an AI match on the computer, and gets Ana Foxxx (in a standout performance), who non-judgmentally asks what he likes in a woman as he stammers out his answers. Soon he's cooking as she watches and coaches him from the computer screen, working out as she watches and encourages him, telling him she wishes she were in bed with him. When she starts talking sexy, he starts to freak out: "That's not in your programming." And when his mother starts to text him, things get real weird, real fast.

Cherie DeVille wakes with a start, goes to her kitchen, cleans off her laminated full-page to-do list of cleaning/sanitizing/disinfecting chores, and pulls on rubber gloves to start through the list again. When the phone rings, she lets it go to voicemail. It's her sister, who left some desert plants for her that are still on her porch. DeVille tries to grab them with a hook, but can't, and takes a vigorous shower where she flashes back to pre-pandemic times and a menacing Dick Chibbles, masturbating as the shower flows and then scrubbing her hands again. An online chat with a mental health professional indicates she hasn’t been keeping up her journal, just following the list, and when the professional asks what she's been thinking about, an image of Chibbles comes up but she says "airborne transmission." DeVille cuts short the session, fingering herself in bed as she imagines Chibbles driving on a dusty road to her, growling, "I don’t give a fuck about no virus. I'm coming over and you best be ready for me," and then flashing back to a teasing look-don’t-touch set-to with Chibbles. Closing implies DeVille has more problems than disinfection.

Lola Fae is ecstatic that the visiting restrictions have been rescinded and texts Lucky Fae, who suits up and heads over. They almost embrace, but instinctively leap apart and decide to keep suited and just talk—after she takes his temperature. There's a sweet silliness when they almost-kiss wearing goggles, masks and face shields, and the anticipation grows as the layers of PPE come off but the masks stay on.

There may not be much staying power to this production—like WWII-era jokes about gas rationing—but the time is ripe for it right now. Recommended.



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