Bull's Eye
a review by Onan the Vulgarian
Best of Phoenix Alternative Video Reviewer
rating
Bull's Eye Cast: Justin (J.T.) Sloan (profiles.yahoo.com/jtsloanx69), Chad Conners (www.ChadConners.com), Chad Knight, Cutter West, Danny Orlis, Eric York (www.EricYork.com), Rusty Samuels, Tim Lowe, Warren Scott.
Directed by Michael Zen for All Worlds Video.
Channel 1 Releasing, 8721 Santa Monica Blvd. #525, Los Angeles, CA 90069. Toll-free orders 800-997-9072. Internet www.Channel1Releasing.com.
Click here to purchase.

Channel 1 Releasing has plucked the 1995 thriller Bull's Eye from the All Worlds vaults and transferred it to DVD. What an excellent choice! This award-winning film is one of the jewels in director Michael Zen's crown, with superior acting, direction, music, photography and sex. I gave Hard Choice Awards to Zen, and to J.T. Sloan and Tim Lowe. And as I wrote in my original review, it's not often that a porno film has a story so compelling, you fast-forward through the sex to find out what happens next.
    The DVD has previews, PopShot-on-Demand and "Wrap It Up." Here's my original review.

If you think of Alfred Hitchcock, or the Grand Guignol horror movies of Davis and Crawford, you'll have some idea of how dark a film Bull's Eye is. Written by award-winning screenwriter Stan Ward (Songs in the Key of Sex, Jumper) and directed by auteur Michael Zen (Falconhead 1 & 2, He Devils) for All Worlds Video, Bull's Eye is as groundbreaking a film as you're likely to see on the blue screen.
    Tim Lowe is a rogue cop. Kicked off the force for gay-bashing, he now makes a living as a security guard. Lowe lives with J.T. Sloan, in a relationship based on mind and power games they play with each other. As the plot develops, you're never quite sure which of them is Baby Jane and which one Blanche. Both give bravura performances, but it is Sloan who, cast severely against type, walks away with the acting kudos. You will never be able to look at him in another porno film and think of that cute sexy jockboy from Canada with the maple leaf tattoo and the downy buns.
    They share the screen with Cutter West — playing a top, of all things — Rusty Samuels, Danny Orlis, Chad Knight, Eric York, and Chad Conners. The eerie, Bernard Herrmann-esque music by Michaelangelo, the harsh lighting which shows every pore, and the moody camera work by Clark Kent and Dave Kinnick all help to make a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts.
    As the film opens, Sloan is on the run, ragged and bleeding. He hides in a garage, where West and Samuels soon arrive to have sex. Sloan emerges from hiding after the fucking has ended and West has left, and begs a ride from Samuels to the house of his buddy, Chad Knight, on the pretext that someone is trying to kill him. After giving Samuels the address, Sloan falls into an exhausted sleep. When he awakens, the car is in front of Knight's house and a dead Samuels is in the trunk. A bull's eye is scrawled in lipstick on the windshield.
    Sloan runs to the house, to find Knight seducing sailor Danny Orlis. He waits until they finish, and Orlis leaves, to run in and ask for Knight's help. Their conversation is peppered with references to someone named Doug. Knight sends Sloan to the shower to clean up, while he checks out the body.
    In the shower, Sloan reminisces about having sex with Chad Conners, and being caught by Doug, Tim Lowe's character. We learn that a serial killer, who leaves a bull's eye scrawled in lipstick at the scene of every crime, has been preying on Sloan's sex partners. It doesn't take a mental giant to surmise that either Sloan or Lowe must be the killer, but there are still plenty of surprises in store.
    Sloan and Lowe have a violent, scary, and powerfully erotic sex scene, in which we get a few solid answers about the fatal attraction between them. It wouldn't be fair to say any more, except that, even after you learn the secret of their relationship, there are still more secrets which unfold.
    Bull's Eye engages you on so many levels — visual, libidinal, emotional, intellectual — that you will, for sure, want to watch it at least once just for the plot alone. It's not often that you can say about a porno film that you fast-forwarded through the sex scenes to find out what happened next. Michael Zen and Stan Ward have redefined gayporn.

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