Sanatorium - dvd by Zero Tolerance - review by Alicia

At first I have to say, I was a bit skeptic about this film. By the preview and the DVD cover I thought it might be a bit too much psycho-thriller and not enough porn for us. After watching it though, I can say I was definitely proved wrong. While this worked out wonderfully for us, I can also see how someone who was looking forward to a psycho-thriller porn could feel let down.

While there are certainly elements of kink and torture, these are done as basically short glimpses and the actual sex scenes are for the most part the sex scenes are all pretty mild. They're still extremely hot and well shot, but they're not anything that you wouldn't see in your average porno film. I've definitely seen many porn scenes with far more rough sex, and I have to say I was expecting a lot more kinky rough sex from this film. Again, for us this was a good thing, as we found the scenes to be highly erotic and quite a turn on.

The lighting was awesome, and the scenes were all shot well. The film makers covered just about every angle, and you could really see the action well while still giving the feel of an actual movie and not a porn where the stars are acknowledging the camera. This is a high budget porn, and that shows. Normally we prefer porn where the stars do acknowledge the camera, only because in the ones they don't it looks so fake that they might as well. Sanatorium though you almost get the idea that you're just catching a peak into the room while the people are going about their fun. Almost, that is. There is still some mild overacting, and some cheesy lines.

I won't give a scene by scene breakdown, since Sanatorium plays out as a feature film and not neatly broken down into scenes, but I will give a basic rundown of the plot. Sanatorium is basically a series of flashbacks and dreams from Tabitha's point of view. It tells her story of getting involved in pornography and getting in too deep so to speak, and how she fought against anti-porn crusaders who were far more corrupt than they claimed her to be. Because the film is set in different periods of time and the sex scenes are shown as memories or stories, it was sometimes difficult to keep up with exactly what was going on with the actual storyline part of the film. While we got the basic idea, there were certainly times that we were left saying "wait what is going on?". A lot of the storyline seems to be implied, and I suppose we missed part of that. Upon further research of this film, it seems that was the point when making it, so I can say without hesitation that they succeeded!

As far as the sex scenes themselves go, they have just about everything covered. There is girl on girl scenes, a group scene, girl with guy, an anal scene (which is also a POV scene), oral sex; basically something for just about everything. The scenes, as I said above, are pretty hot and steamy. The actual sex scenes were some of the best I've seen in porn (though I fully admit I am in now way a porn "expert" so my experience in porn is not that in depth) and I really enjoyed the scenes. The gory/graphic glimpses throughout the movie I could have done without though. It was a bit hard for us to go from in the mood during a sex scene to seeing torture and then back to feeling sexy by the next scene. Obviously this movie is intended for those who like that sort of thing though, and is intended to turn the viewer on while keeping them in suspense.

Continued from above:

Just when you think you're done with this film..Wait! There is a second disc! The second disc is all the bonus features. There is a compilation of the cum-shots from the film, a behind the scenes look, an interview with the director (Tabitha Stevens), some bonus scenes and some trailers for other films.

The movie stars Tabitha Stevens, Kagney Linn Karter, and Sarah Vandella and features Ashley Roberts, Francesca Lee, Lux Kassidy, Raylene, Ethan Hawk, James Deen, Kris Slater, Nick Manning, Ron Jeremy, and Tyler Knight.