If Bram Stoker had a literary lovechild with Jane Austen, the result might resemble the script for Forever Night, a nightmare sex movie which pits Jamie Gillis against God in a Texas Death Match for nothing less than his immortal soul. In this round, Jamie is losing. Badly.

It seems that after his wife (Stacy Valentine) died during childbirth, Jamie has forsaken the Almighty with the gusto of a drunken sailor -- and was thus damned to live out eternity in a loveless existence "persecuted by false visions" of his beloved banging her ever lovin' heart out with a coterie of masked strangers (among other perverse hallucinations).

This description is perhaps more detailed than the show itself, which is an elaborately mounted all-sex feature tied together with purposely repetitive narration, suggesting the cyclical nature of Jamie's unique purgatory. The idea of watching nasty hardcore sex acts for all eternity seems more like our concept of a pretty cushy afterlife, but that's a question which may never be answered.

Like Dark Shadows on Viagra, the visual assault commences as Stacy (in Marie Antoinette duds) goes down on two harlequin-masked jesters outside of a castle. Flashes of lighting signal the beginning of a hot but fairly brief d.p. and facial. (Although punctuated by shots of Gillis writhing in agony, we have to assume this motif has nothing to do with Jamie getting boned in the ass.)

Jeanna Fine, alternately sporting a man's tux or a red latex number with a fright wig, sort of become Jamie's confidant/netherworld hostess, taking time from the Grand Guignol tour to bend over for a nice doggie-style shot in the puss from yet another masked guy. (Most of the male faces are hidden. If Greg Dark was an advisor on this feature, it sure wasn't in the credits.)

Suddenly the Marie Antoinette costume is on Liza Harper, and an unrecognizable stud is up her ass like stink on a monkey. Pay attention, class, because this is probably the hottest, most nomination-worthy scene in the movie. Liza rides his blue-veined stump like Roy Rogers rode Trigger and it's a masterful sight.

Trailing right behind (ba-da-bum!) is a grisly get-together with Jill Kelly and Eric Prince, whose visage is entirely covered by a superb monster makeup job. She sucks on his demonic cock and bends over for yet another salacious butt-fucking -- the vid is chock full of 'em.

Clearly, one has to have both a sense of humor and a taste for the outre to appreciate what Ninn is doing here. If one were to take out the Halloween atmosphere and the over-the-top music (which runs the gamut from Dies Irae to disco gothic) there would be little but a handful of sex scenes left over. Ripe with pseudo-biblical posturing and liberal cribbing from Melville ('... from Hell's heart I spit at thee..."), Ninn dives into the heart of carnal darkness, where the act of sex is literally a sinful one.

Unexplained metaphoric imagery abounds. Gillis wears a white Panama suit and sunglasses; the Maria Antoinette dress and wig finds its way onto most of the female cast, rendering them almost indistinguishable from one another. Why? Who knows. In a way the trappings are the point of the exercise. The medium is the message.

Admittedly, the image of Gillis watching his wife getting cornholed by a ghost who appears out of a foggy pool might not stiffen the dick of your average raincoater, and clearly the vid was designed for an upscale audience. If Forever Night is too Catholic, remember what Milton said, "Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven."