Underworld

The new biggie from Brad Armstrong is one of his most visually striking and conceptually daring. It’s also a tour de force for Jessica Drake, who sizzles in five of seven sex scenes (two anals) and aces her biggest acting challenge since “Fallen.”

After some passionate lovemaking Jessica and boyfriend Steven St. Croix fall prey to thieves in a parking garage, and Jessica is shot and seriously wounded. An ER surgeon (Armstrong) performs the difficult task of keeping her alive. As the procedures take place we share her sexually charged, anesthesia-induced hallucinations—all relating to the procedures she undergoes as her life hangs in the balance.

The characters she meets on her underworld odyssey as vividly imagined and portrayed, starting with Slice, who has scalpels for fingers, and Mecha (as in mechanical), an eye-patched woman with a respirator for a body. Xander Corvus and Julia Ann excel in their roles.

Asa Akira appears as Blood (“I am here to replenish you”), leading to sex with Jessica and two men. Her bleeding is brought under control and she is stitched and sutured—Asphyxia Noir is Stitch and Toni Ribas is Suture. Their threeway with Jessica is the hottest sequence. The most visually striking scene has Capri Cavanni as Gauze turning cartwheels in mid-air before coming to rest with Jessica on what looks like an ice floe on a limitless sea.

Finally Jessica confronts Death himself in the forbidding person of leather-hooded Derrick Pierce for final anal sex. In the end, love and modern medicine carry the day. It’s a superb feature with the adult industry’s foremost star-director team at the top of their game.