How would you spend your fifth wedding anniversary?

In the case of Brad Armstrong and Dyanna Lauren, the Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy of porn, an evening at a fetish castle certainly beats a bucket of buttered pop corn and Pulp Fiction.

Lauren, in this visually manicured set piece, looks positively radiant. Ergo, one would assume she's got to be ripe for plucking in this coop of concupiscence by nature of her radiance.

Right and wrong. Director English sets up some potentially hot and fascinating itineraries only to miss the depravity boat by arriving at another dock. When hostess Bionca whips out the candles and blindfolds we might expect the same old parlor trick we've seen in dozens of other features, but wait. Armstrong allows the hot wax to trickle down Dyanna's lovely ass crack, suggesting, perhaps, just perhaps, he's going to light the Roman candle from the bottom end. In which case, you'd be thinking wrong, since the scene resolves itself like a dead firecracker with the pithiest of missionaries. Tom Byron spanks Tammi Ann for spilling a drink, then worships her ass with the fervor of a Rosebud loop only to punctuate the scene with the kind of fuck you'd expect from a couple celebrating their fifth anniversary with a six-pack of Bud.

Two of the most potentially interesting moments in this feature wind up sharing similar fates. Marc Wallice asks Rebecca Bardoux to remove her stockings (it's about time someone takes the initiative since the directors are oblivious), so that he can shave her legs. Marc lathers her thighs, and Rebecca aims her ass in a poised manner as if her butthole were about to go into Hamlet's "To be, or not to be..." soliloquy. No such luck. A series of single head shots followed by a quick-fix missionary crumbles diose hopes. Chayse Manhattan then savors Lauren's legs and feet in a Bardoux-added direesome but signs off abrupdy like the curfew bell ending a wrestling main event. This leaves Sean Michaels to butt fuck a leather-encased Bionca without a condom, and I only draw attention to that fact because Michaels has just, seconds before, finger-fucked her ass with a condom on his diget. To each is own, I suppose.

Visually satisfying in so many respects, Extreme Sex with a good boxcover should satisfy the needs of couples who haven't got up the nerve to do what this feature seems to back off from doing.