LOS ANGELES — It’s been a noteworthy year for director B. Skow, as he continues to add new dimensions and layers to existing porn genres by pushing the envelope and embracing taboo subject matters.
“This uncharted approach obscures stereotypes of adult entertainment – I want to make us think about porn in a different way,” Skow explained.
Through his Skow for Girlfriends Films label, Skow is striving to reshape the landscape of porn as he parlays his experience from mainstream and adult work into a new movement being labeled "Progressive Porn."
Skow said his Progressive Porn movement reflects how he approaches gonzo and feature porn movies from different angles. New terms for his work are emerging such as "Avant-Gonzo" and "Dogme 69," a play off of Lars Von Trier's genre, called Dogme 95, which rejects special effects and gimmicks.
“I have a lot of respect for B. Skow and what he’s accomplished in the past year alone,” said Girlfriends Films President Moose. “He’s always reinventing, re-envisioning, and creating new things in ways that nobody could have thought about, and it’s those things that really get people excited about his movies.”
Tinkering with traditional gonzo elements and making the genre more intimate, Skow’s “1 Room 4 Girls: Volume 1” and the recently released volume 2 takes viewers into a room with each of the girls one at a time, as they take direction from him on how to touch and pleasure themselves.
Skow’s Avant-Gonzo fare has led the director to expand the content in his popular series “Sexually Explicit,” with all future volumes containing two discs.
“Sexually Explicit 5” will begin shipping Friday.
Critics and fans are also taking note of the way Skow’s features are shaping a new style of intellectual, story-driven, anti-blockbuster features – Dogme 69.
3HatterGrindhouse.com’s Richard Moreland hailed Skow’s vision in “Control,” his BDSM-themed hardcore drama. “B Skow’s ‘Control’ is [Henry] James revisited. It’s illusion and defied logic that is clever and disarming, a classic from a director who is quirky, imaginative, and full of fantastic distortions and implications,” Moreland wrote.
Skow’s imaginative “In the Flesh” showed more of Skow’s edge by exploring religious themes. His disquieting “The Gardener” takes the audience into the twisted mind of a creepy psycho who holds a young woman hostage in a home that he calls “The Garden.” The psychological, hardcore porn drama plays out with Jessie Andrews as a kidnap victim who ultimately bares her captor’s child.
“Yes, ‘The Gardener’ is an off-center movie, but perhaps we need more of that in porn to necessarily shake things up. And while the movie may start out slow, give it a chance: The story builds and builds—as does the sex!” wrote XBIZ’s Walter Paisley.
Skow has never shied away from controversy in his work, such as with the sequel to 2013’s “Daddy’s Girls,” which XBIZ heralded as one of the year’s most controversial movies.
“Mother’s Little Helper,” Skow’s newest feature, begins shipping Sept. 4.
Whether it’s recent releases, like “Auditions 2,” “Sexually Explicit 4,” or Girlfriends Films’ popular all-girl series “Bad Lesbians,” Skow continues to bring his unique vision and sensibilities to porn. For access to all movies from Skow for Girlfriends Films, as well as box art and trailers, click here.
“I never set out to revolutionize the industry or try to create the next ‘Big Thing,” Skow said. “I make movies about things that appeal to me and that have elements that I would like to see in an adult movie. I just get these ideas and put them to work with the best people I can find.”