Being a practicing tarot divinator for more years than I'd care to admit to, it only makes sense that I'd get a crack at reviewing Adam & Eve/Ultimate Pictures' latest opus, the stylistically venturesome Taboo of Tarot.  It wouldn't take a psychic to tell you that a better title might have been conjured up, but director Nick Steele obviously has his sights set on something other than the hall of dumb names -- "fame" being the more likely alternative, if Steele and company continue in this creative mode.  With its inspired visuals and sense of authenticity, Taboo of Tarot is a product of unstinting passion characterized by a flamboyant music score (Saint) that brings to mind some of the exotic Middle Eastern themes to be tasted in the recent mainstream film 8mm.

As the storyline goes, even tarot readers have their groupies, which gets Jessica Drake and Chandler up to their beautiful esoterica in their search for clues to the disappearance of a psychic (played by Nikki Anderson).  Within the haunts of an old manse (great house, by the way), Chandler and Drake happen upon a deck of tarot cars that once belonged to Anderson.  As they plumb the mysteries of the deck, particular cards emerge and come to life -- a gambit similar to that in the classic Peter Cushing Hammer horror pic Dr. Terror's House of Horrors.

Okay; maybe I'm a sucker for stained glass windows -- of which there are more here than in your average French cathedral.  But for those into such objects as defining elements of production value in adult movies, from here, the feature gets downright spine-tingling with its deployment of costuming, camerawork and art direction, all beautifully resolute in their interpretation of the card figures' archetypal eccentricities.  To wit, Evan Stone is the charioteer, portrayed in the tarot deck as the all-or-nothing Alpha male.  In a scene that pretty much defines the raw magnitude of this production, Stone gallops into view on a chariot and takes peasant girl Envy in the ass quicker than you can say Ben-Hur.  Now that the legendary Marc Wallace is a drydock, Stone gets all the long, flowing-hair-in-the-breeze parts, and is a damn worthy successor to Wallace.  Pre-nom this scene, as well as the opening threeway that brings together Chandler, Drake and streams of hot wax together for a luxurious date with the tarot deck's High Priestess, Vivi Anne -- Chandler, looking the best I've seen her, finally getting it in the ass via a strap-on wielded by Drake.

When I mentioned authenticity earlier, one particular subtlety of this feature offers convincing evidence that the scriptwriter did some homework.  The "Two of Cups" (the tarot symbol of love) featuring Drake and Dale DaBone first depicts them in their card rendition as back to back and blindfolded.  Very few tarot decks, perhaps the only one being The Sacred Rose, actually do this.  In most traditions, the couple is seen face to face, approaching one another to embrace.  Minor point, but it really drives home the fact that exceptional pains were taken to avoid getting off on the cheap as could be expected from the usual "adult industry" project.

Nikki Anderson, who has star billing, plays the psychic Katrina Sands.  Anderson gets two great scenes, one with Randy Spears (as her husband); the other with Mark Davis, who as her lover, gets to plow her in the ass.  As it's the "lover" who generally gets the better end of the deal in the love triangle -- even in tarot mythology -- Dave is appropriately blessed with the anal duties.

Besides Steele for delivering a modern masterpiece, special nods to Christoff for art direction; Emotion Arts Digital for the grand visual f/x; Jane Waters and Philip O'Toole for superb camerawork and O'Toole for editing.